FOL MONTH: Hot Flash (1/2)
TITLE: Hot Flash
Author: Misty Flores
Fandom: Facts of Life
Pairing: Jo/Blair
Rating: PG-13
Teaser: Intent is always easier than execution, Jo and Blair figure out, as they deal with the fact that having a baby may be more of a struggle than they had originally planned.
Series: Sorta. Not really, but a follow-up to 'When Blair Warner met Joanne Jefferson and Jo Polniaczek Went Insane' and 'In a Family Way', both found on Passion & Perfection.
Dedication: I've gleaned that it's anomolys b-day. Happy B-day. :-D
Notes: I've got about three different stories, including this one, in the works for Facts of Life Month. I just... you know... don't have a lot of time to actually write them. Work and all that. The other two are one-shots, but I'll get them done eventually. I swear.
--
Prologue
It was four am.
Jo Polniaczeck had a lecture, two quizzes, and an extra long shift at Over Our Heads thanks to Natalie taking on more hours than she could handle at the cannery.
The 8 month old baby currently residing in a ridiculously expensive cradle, just ten feet away from her in the middle of the darkened room, could have cared less.
She could hear it coming, the barely discernable shifting, and breath bated, she waited for it.
It came, in the form of a tiny scream, cutting through the silence of the room.
Pushing up to her elbows, Jo blinked sleepily at the cradle and then at her roommate. The overly cushioned bed beside hers was hidden in a mountain of too fluffy blankets and pillows with little frills on the side. Somewhere in the midst of all that, was Blair Warner.
"Blair," she whispered, throat clogged with sleep. "Blair!"
The mountain of blankets moved.
Sitting up, Blair looked like a zombie, nearly teetering off her bed as she shuffled in the general direction of the baby.
"Sorry," she mumbled, finger waving absently in her direction before hair wrapped in loose rollers fell off her shoulders as she bent down over the crib.
Falling back onto her bed, Jo stared up at the ceiling and wondered grumpily if it would do any good to get mad.
It wasn't as if Blair had actually ASKED if she would mind being cooped up with a baby for three weeks while her mother went who knew where. And while Tootie and Natalie liked to complain, it was Jo, the eternally light sleeper, who bore the brunt of the inconvenience. Tootie and Natalie had learned to sleep through it.
Now, it was four am and she was awake, and the baby, who should have been able to sleep through the night by now, was missing it's mother, and crying in sporadic bursts, timing them just so Jo never actually got any sleep.
Jo secretly thought Bailey hated her.
Melodic humming slowly began, and Jo rested the side of her head on her elbow as she watched her roommate balance the baby in her arms, bobbing her gently in her arms as tiny shining eyes blinked at her from the little head resting on Blair's shoulder.
Without a word, Jo sighed dramatically and threw off her covers, padding her way to the changing table Blair had bought for the occasion, opening the drawer that had the ridiculously expensive diapers Blair insisted on buying ("They hold crap, Blair," Jo had snarled at the grocery store. "She's not pooping diamonds!"), and pulling one out.
Eternally crabby, Jo had gotten used to the routine. Spreading the diaper out, she wordlessly grabbed the baby powder and liberally shook it over it. She waited, trying to get beyond her sleepy blinking to glare properly, as she felt the shift of silk against her elbow, and moved aside with her powdered diaper, to allow Blair to work on Bailey's soiled one.
"That kid poops more than my dog did," she couldn’t help grunting, and got a mildly frosty look from Blair as a result.
Blair was good at this, which, quite frankly, surprised her. For a girl raised by nannies and a barrage of step fathers and boarding schools, Blair took an odd sense of pleasure in being able to take care of her baby sister. While she would complain for days on end about getting grease stains from Jo's scattered car parts on her expensive blouses, baby vomit and saliva produced not a word from her friend's perfectly lined lips.
Crossing her arms, Jo watched slender fingers as they nimbly deconstructed the diaper, and without nary a wrinkle of her nose at the smelly deposit, wrapped it tightly into a ball.
Baby Bailey produced a different side of Blair, softer glimpses that even now, seemed rare.
Eying her friend, Jo felt a moment of dangerously mushy warmth.
"Okay," Blair said, knocking her out of her groggy thoughts, in an uncharacteristically gritty voice, lifting up the baby's legs so Jo could slide in her prepared diaper.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Jo obeyed, as Bailey watched her suspiciously, chubby hands pulled into fists.
Bailey's frequent visits had been an adjustment, but Jo would never complain. Blair had almost lost her baby sister to an abortion. It made sense she would feel such an intense connection when she was prepared to raise the baby herself in order to keep such a thing from happening.
"You're going to be a good mom," she found herself saying, unable to hide the wonder in her voice that the statement was actually true.
Blair paused briefly, taken by surprise. Jo found herself flushing under the unintended admission.
"I mean… you won't suck at it," she amended gruffly, and then reached for the newly pampered baby, an attempt at distraction. "Give her to me. Otherwise, we'll be here all night."
Bailey smelled of baby powder, and as Jo settled her against her chest, she expected her usual moment of struggle and wary glare. Curling into Jo's shoulder, the baby only babbled and sucked her thumb into her mouth, closing her eyes.
The intimate gesture of trust startled her.
Of course, Blair would catch the tentative fleeting expression of pleased relief, and of course, Blair would shoot her the cheesiest grin known to man.
"What?" she asked. She was trying to sound as annoyed as possible, but judging at the widening smile on her friend's face, she wasn't being very successful.
"Nothing," Blair said, looking infuriatingly smug. "I just think you won't be absolutely horrible at it yourself."
There was supposed to be a compliment in there somewhere.
"Yeah well," she began, shifting little Bailey in her arms. "Don’t get any ideas. We're not gonna be stay at home moms living on the same block taking our kids to softball in matching minivans."
Blair looked at her blankly. "Jo, on what planet would you be able to afford to live on the same block as I do?"
Point, Blair.
Sighing, Jo rolled her eyes and turned away, heading as quietly as she could to the crib, gingerly setting Bailey back in her crib. A brush of warmth pressing in lightly against her side revealed Blair joining her, staring lovingly down at her baby sister.
"I do want one," she said wistfully. "Not right away of course. When I find a suitable husband. With blonde hair."
Jo's brow furrowed in response. "Blonde?"
"Well of course. I want little blonde ringlets curling all over my baby's head. Like a cherub."
Jo snorted in response. "More like a kid from Children of the Corn."
Still, she told herself it was a welcome relief that Blair still possessed her standard vanity. Once in a while, her bleached blonde friend tended to throw her for a loop. Jo still wasn't quite over Blair deciding for a minute she would try lesbianism and that fiasco was over a year ago.
The memory lingered momentarily in Jo's mind, and suddenly her eyes on Blair's mouth, remembering the rather amorous conclusion of that little experiment, with Jo being a not altogether reluctant participant.
"What about you?" Feeling caught, Jo's eyes rose to meet Blair's. "When are you going to have your little grease monkeys?"
"Oh…" Jo hated when she felt this way. It was almost… bashful. In front of BLAIR. She waited to come to her senses. "I don't know."
"You do… want kids, don't you?"
"Of course!" she managed, reaching up to cover her ears when they felt warm. "I just… I don't know. I got a lot to do first. I mean… I want a career. I want to do something with my life."
Blair grinned prettily. "That's my Jo. Always wanting to save the world."
In her head, Jo knew she was being patronizing. Still, head hazy from all the damned domesticity, Jo only shrugged in response.
When Blair's fingers brushed against her cheek, she let them, ignoring her quickening heartbeat, and the way she sucked in her breath.
Suddenly her eyes were on Blair's mouth again.
"Can you two put that baby to bed so we can all get some SLEEP?!"
The crabby voice jolted her out of whatever the hell she was thinking, and Jo was glad for it.
Straightening, she coughed, and without another look at her roommate, snarled an appropriate comeback at Tootie, before burying herself in her sheets.
Wide awake, Jo listened as Blair cooed at Bailey one more time and then drifted to her bed.
She got crabby all over again.
She also decided that starting tomorrow she would suggest that Blair sleep in Mrs. Garret's room with Bailey, while she was away.
--
PART ONE.
Jo had never done well when dealing with shrieky, hyper socialites.
They were a breed she had managed to avoid her entire professional career. Unless they were slumming, looking for a cheap thrill, not many rich debutants ever made their way into the darkened streets of Hells Kitchen, the Bronx…
Do-Gooder Joanne Jefferson, with her Bohemian partner, and Blair Warner were the only exceptions.
Of course, she had come to learn to tolerate Blair (more than tolerate, but who was nitpicking) after more than a decade of experience, and while she wasn't ever sure she could truly LIKE JoJo, considering the circumstances of their first meeting, she had proven to be a remarkable ally when it came to getting warrants and navigating the somewhat confusing legal system.
Still, at the moment, both women had fully assimilated into their group of shrieking harpies, and Jo, fighting a migraine and the urge to punch Cindy's lights out when she insisted on playing some stupid game with cotton balls, had grabbed a plate of pigs in the blanket (the only edible thing on the entire catering menu, and the only thing she could pronounce) and escaped to the terrace of the penthouse.
What the hell was Jo thinking, letting Blair host the baby shower here?
"Are those from inside?"
Ten feet away, settled comfortably astride the balcony railing, Maureen Johnson took a long drag from her cigarette, booted leg dangling over the edge.
Brow arching curiously, Jo offered up her plate. "When'd you sneak out?"
"Right around the time they started the game with the clothes pins," Maureen rasped, smoke drifting from her lips, head falling back against the wall she was resting against. Nodding in thanks, she grabbed a pig and popped it in her mouth with her free hand.
Joanne's partner's too red lipstick was a stark contrast to the pale complexion, and staring out somberly at the city, she seemed lost in contemplation.
Unable to fight the cop inside of her, Jo frowned at the lit cigarette in her hand. "You know, second hand smoke is bad for the baby."
She got rolling eyes in response. "You don't think Joanne's told me that? Everyday, she brings home another god-damned pamphlet. I told her to be glad it's not pot." Jo immediately winced. "And yeah, then she always makes that face." Maureen confirmed. Sighing, she immediately let the cigarette go. Jo watched as it fell to the city streets, fifty stories below. "I don't do it around Joanne. Besides, I'm quitting," Maureen announced, swinging her leg back over the balcony and planting both her booted feet on the safety of the terrace. "That was my last one."
"How iconic," Jo remarked.
"Fuck you," Maureen responded.
"You wish."
"Please," she drawled, elbows resting on the balcony. "One pretentious self-righteous Jo is more than enough for me."
This was, of course, an awkward conversation. Jo knew Maureen didn't like her. In her grief at the death of her friend Mimi, she had quickly associated Jo as one of the detectives who had arrested her in connection with a murder of a drug dealer. Jo had not been there at the time of the arrest, but had received a phone call from Joanne. Mimi had been released and Jo had driven her back to their squatter's palace personally, but Maureen had never forgiven her for "allowing" their dying friend to spend a night in jail.
Maureen and her friends had never trusted the police, and that was how Maureen saw her: nothing but a badge.
Jo didn't care. She didn't exactly think Maureen hung the moon either.
Still, the fast friendship between Blair and Jojo, and the miraculous reality that both couples had managed to stay together, insisted that they dwell in each other's orbit. At the moment, driven outside of her own home by a bunch of shallow pretentious vacuous ditzes (she wasn't being harsh, she was being honest), Jo was glad for the company.
"Shouldn't you be in there?" she asked, jerking her head in the direction of the party. Dark curls tumbling over her shoulders, swaying in the breeze, Maureen just looked at her. "It's your baby shower," Jo reminded her. "You should be in there with Joanne."
A cold smile floated on the other woman's face. "What, I'm not being the supportive, loving partner?"
"You think you are?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"You're on the balcony."
"I'm not the only one."
Jo sighed, irritated. "It's not my god-damned shower."
Maureen studied her intently. "Right." She said, in the way that Joanne said it, when she was trying to make a point. "But Joanne told me you've been trying for a while." A hot flush spread down Jo's body. Maureen's brow rose suggestively. "Sure you're doing it right?"
"Maureen, what the hell is your point?" she snapped, unable to fight the ache in her chest, and hating herself for it.
"You think it's easy for Princess Blair to watch Joanne get what she wanted so easily?"
Jo's eyes closed, and then shot open, glancing through the open windows to settle on her best friend and lover. Blair, ever the perfect hostess, laughed the loudest as Megan crawled along the plush carpet, scooping up cotton balls.
Jo exhaled unsteadily.
"Not so perfect, are you?" Jo knew Maureen had just barely resisted calling her a pig. Old habits died hard.
"Blair will get her baby," Jo answered, fists shoved into her pockets, suddenly too sad to be angry. "Allright?"
Maureen didn't look at her. Striking features studied the city below them, as intently as if she were reading a book. "I was thinking I was lucky." Jo blinked at the sudden change of conversation. "That's what I was doing out here." The voice ended with a wistful rasp.
"What?"
Green eyes met her own vividly. "I got two friends in the grave and the ones I got left have one foot in it. Mark's dealing with Roger's relapse and I'm sitting on a fucking penthouse balcony with my wife, whose gonna have a baby."
A solid lump burned its way into Jo's throat, and she glanced away self consciously, coming forward. "Are you telling me you're having an unselfish moment, here?" Glancing at her, Maureen's mouth twitched. "Mark's the father," Jo said curiously, as gently as possible. "Right?"
Maureen nodded, her small smile affectionate. "Yeah. He's my ex."
"That's not weird for you?"
"I woke up one day and I was hopelessly in love with an anal, over-attentive control freak without a penis." Maureen looked at her. "After you experience that, weird isn't a problem anymore."
Jo found herself smiling, despite herself. "You going back in there?"
There was only a moment's hesitation, before Maureen nodded, plucking another pig from the abandoned plate and popping it in her mouth.
"You coming?"
"In a minute."
Maureen stepped away, hand on the handle, apparently steadying herself for the burst of hysterical coos.
"Jo." The drama queen looked remarkably sincere. "Good luck. You know… with that baby stuff."
The door opened, and upon hearing the squeals, Maureen's resolve wavered. Exchanging similar tortured smiles, Jo grinned as Maureen shrugged, taking in a deep breath, before flinging open the door wider, and heading back into Joanne's baby shower.
"Allright!" Jo heard above the noise. "Someone pass me one of those stupid lame clothespins."
--
Less than ten minutes after Jo had finally succeeded in escaping the 'shrieking harpies', as her lover had so lovingly put them, she had returned to the festivities, slipping in beside her with a pained but stoic expression.
Blair found it insufferably cute, which raised her spirits slightly.
Painting on a carefree smile and maintaining a charming disposition when one was feeling empty inside grew more difficult with time. Blair had gotten lazy and she blamed that on Jo.
It was difficult to be shallow when one's partner, soul-mate, or whatever Jo ended up becoming was so infuriatingly sweet and sincere and ... intense about everything.
It was Blair's curse, to be saddled with someone as earnest and chivalrous as Jo. Her little greasemonkey who, in high school, had thought nothing of stealing the school van had become a paradigm of virtue, a servant of her people, wandering through the muck and grime of Alphabet City and then coming home to complain about it all.
Blair didn't mind. To be perfectly honest, she had been relieved when Jo began to vent about her job without prodding. Jo had a history of internalizing things, it had been a thorn in their relationship years before they had introduced sex into the equation. As much as Blair tried to make herself believe she didn't mind feeling ignored, the painful truth was that, she did, in fact, mind it. Very much.
Especially when it came to Jo, who had always mattered more than anyone else in the world.
The fact that Jo was trying, had finally allowed herself to try, meant more to Blair than anything else ever had, because it was, after all, Jo, and the Jo she remembered would have rather chewed her own foot off than admit she needed Blair.
Needing Blair implied weakness, and that sort of stubbornness had led to the ultimate stupidity on Jo's part: she had married someone else.
Truthfully, Blair was still a little angry about that. She ignored that emotion, for the most part, because she knew she played a tiny (TINY) part in allowing that to happen. She had kept quiet after their forbidden kiss, all those years ago, dismissing it as a silly amorous moment of insanity. When she couldn't dismiss it anymore, Blair had kept it to herself, under the deluded notion that somehow, Jo would come to her senses on her own.
Of course, Jo hadn't. Jo had married Rick, and Blair, at the time infatuated with what she later realized to be a male version of Jo named Casey, had allowed it to happen.
They had wasted years, would still have wasted them, if Blair hadn't finally forced them both to confront the issue.
Blair found it ridiculously ironic that she was considered the dense one in the relationship.
Still, for all of Jo's faults, Blair found it obscenely hard for settle for anyone else. Not when she knew what she wanted. There had been a glimmer, with Casey, and for a while, after Jo had been married and Blair had been particularly delusional, she actually thought he might have been the one. Sure, he didn't want to marry her, but he had loved her, and in her weakness, the night Jo was married and more than likely consummating her love with Rick, she had given him her virginity.
Blair wouldn't consider it a mistake, but she did consider it rash. Casey had gotten sentimental and Blair had only been depressed. Casey wasn't Jo, no one was, really, and if Blair wasn't going to get what she wanted, she decided there was no point in settling.
Blair was eternally grateful that now, she didn't have to. She had Jo, and even if Blair still wasn't completely sure how it had happened, she knew better than to question her good fortune.
Which didn't mean it wasn't work at times. Since their coupling, Blair had discovered a side of Jo she had only glimpsed before: a jealous, insecure Jo, who somehow was always afraid. It was that Jo that would push her away, that Jo that got possessive under the oddest circumstances, that Jo who struggled the hardest with the very idea that Blair would meet a man and like him so much she would want to have his baby.
Jo had asked her once after they had gotten together, if she had been with another woman before her. Blair had made the mistake of being honest and saying yes.
Now, Blair couldn't even speak to an attractive woman without seeing a glint in Jo's eyes, and heaven forbid she actually make a compliment about another woman in Jo's presence.
She knew there would come a time when she would find the behavior infuriating, and at times she already did, and still, she found her crabby grumpy care bear charming even in her jealous tirades.
She was contemplating all of this at the end of this very long night, after pushing the very pregnant and grateful Joanne Jefferson and her crabby and tired lover Maureen out the door.
Jo had retreated early, energy sapped thanks to their energetic party guests, and Blair was left alone in their penthouse, to glance at baby banners and left over cheesy decorations of storks and diapers Megan had insisted on bringing over.
Blair stood in their penthouse and considered her life and what it had become.
A startling conclusion came to her, even as she pressed her hand to her flat stomach and knew there was no baby growing inside of her.
Everything wasn't perfect. Everything wasn't easy. She wasn't perfect. She wasn't easy.
But this was her life.
Blair was astonished to realize she could actually be fine with that.
--
It was past midnight, when Blair slipped into bed beside Jo, shifting on the long mattress, murmuring a casual loving 'Goodnight, Jo' and turning to flick off the lamp on her side, snuggling into the pillows.
It was ridiculously formal for someone like Blair. Jo normally couldn't keep her cuddly companion from suffocating her, snuggling into her neck and throwing her leg over Jo's, trapping her.
Jo had been completely uncomfortable with it at first - she had never been a cuddly kind of girl. Blair had known that, but as usual, ignored it, and what was forced restraint had become welcome habit. Not that she'd let Blair know.
Still, she had made a visible effort to be pleasant tonight... well, okay, as pleasant as Jo COULD be under the circumstances, and instead of a loving kiss and a flowery speech about how proud Blair was of her (after which Jo could have been suitably annoyed and only slightly receptive to Blair's little pecks against her neck), she had gotten a 'good night' and nothing else.
She reached over and clicked on her own little lamp.
"That's it?"
There was a moment of silence, before her girlfriend shifted and living up on her elbows, looking at her through sleepy eyes. "Pardon?"
"That's it? I go through an evening of hell and it's just 'Good Night'?" Jo repeated.
Her lover stared at her as if she had grown another head.
"Jo? I have a very early meeting tomorrow."
With that, Blair offered her a tiny smile, and then flopped back on the bed, turning her back to her.
Something was definitely wrong.
"Tough," she found herself snapping. "You're not sleeping until you tell me what's going on."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Blair muttered from her side of the bed.
"Right. Usually, I can't get you to shut up about a party."
"Then consider this a blessing in disguise, Jo."
"It's about the baby, isn't it?"
There was a small, discernable hitch of Blair's breath. "What baby?"
"Exactly." Blair didn't move. Biting her bottom lip, Jo closed her eyes, unsure what to do now that she had exposed the open wound. "Hey." Reaching forward, she tentatively squeezed a silky shoulder. "We're gonna get there. You have to believe that."
The anger was gone now, replaced with gentle concern, and it must have been that, that finally caused her lover to turn over, cheek half buried into her pillow as she stared at her with somber eyes.
Blair looked beautiful at night, big brown eyes luminous and sparking in the moonlight.
"I do," she finally admitted, a breathless sigh. "I just... I don't want to talk about it now."
Blair had once told Jo she was like a dog with a bone when she had something on her mind. "Why not?"
Blair regarded her. "Because that seems to be all we talk about," she heard finally. Jo frowned in reaction. "Because ever since we decided we were going to make this happen that's... all we've focused on."
It wasn't what she was expecting to hear. She had been expecting a retread on their usual fights about the baby they were trying to make: Jo not wanting to know the identity of the donor, Blair insisting on knowing, afraid they'd wind up with a serial killer, not even wanting to consider adoption until they were absolutely sure-
Blair was right. Jo was like a dog with a bone. A bulldog.
"You think we've become obsessed with it."
Blair didn't respond immediately. Curling further into the pillow, she sighed, and regarded her lover.
"Do you know what I realized tonight," she began suddenly, voice soft with reverence for the darkness of the night, "As I saw JoJo getting that bassinet and breast pump and ... everything else?"
"What?"
Blair smiled. "That as much as I want a baby - I'm happy just being with you." Reaching forward, Blair laid a soft hand on her cheek, tracing the skin gently. "I never wanted this to be something we had to prove to ourselves. And I never wanted this to be something you think I needed to be happy. You make me happy. Admittedly, you also make me furious, but after more than 15 years, I've learned to cope."
It was a rather calm statement coming from someone like Blair, who had presented the idea of a baby to her months ago like she was asking for them to invest in a new stock portfolio.
Back then it had seemed so easy, to look through the binder Jojo had put together for them and plan for a baby like they could plan for a retirement plan. Jo had always been one for causes, and after the initial shock that she was actually considering having a baby with Blair Warner of all people had passed, she had lobbied hard for it. She had caught a glimpse of their future, tripping over baby toys and fighting with Blair because a baby didn't need three hundred dollar booties, and she had craved it.
That was before months of arguments about donors and fertility tests and failed pregnancy sticks and the unspoken fear that maybe, just maybe, Jo would never be able to feel a life growing inside Blair, because newly discovered ovarian cysts had never figured in Jo's plans.
Blair had always been obsessed with being perfect, and the idea that something was so wrong inside of her she could actually be incapable of carrying a baby wasn't something that neither could actually entertain.
It would be just like Blair not to admit defeat, but rather, declare she was just fine with not having a baby at all.
Years ago, Jo would see this and just get angry, because it was inherently selfish, and just so... BLAIR to quit rather than really try, no matter what the consequences.
But this was the present, and Jo had learned she loved Blair, faulty flaws and all. God knew, Blair loved to point out she had a few of her own.
Looking into the heartbreaking expression that was Blair trying to be blasé about something she so obviously still wanted, Jo didn't have the heart to get angry.
"How about we take a break from all the baby talk," she finally compromised, managing as sweet a smile as she could, as Blair's face betrayed a barely noticeable expression of relief. "And focus on the important thing."
A perfectly shaped brow rose suggestively. "And that is?"
"The fact that I spent my afternoon in the company of the most annoying women on the planet, and I haven't been thanked properly for it."
Blair's grin grew wider, mock sympathy flirting across her features. "Oh poor Jo," she gasped dramatically. "The horrors!"
"Damn right, the horrors!" she snorted. "I had to put a string around Joanne's stomach and guess her damned stomach size, Blair!"
"No!" Blair's breath sucked in sympathetically.
"I had to play Baby Bingo!"
That actually got a laugh, a beautiful one that made Jo smile in return, as Blair leaned over and curled her fingers over Jo's cheek, looking into her face lovingly.
"What can I do to make it up to you?"
Jo had a few ideas, but before she could voice them, Blair's mouth had already descended, and was pressing against hers lovingly.
Sighing into the kiss, Jo didn't protest.
It was a start.
--
TBC.
Author: Misty Flores
Fandom: Facts of Life
Pairing: Jo/Blair
Rating: PG-13
Teaser: Intent is always easier than execution, Jo and Blair figure out, as they deal with the fact that having a baby may be more of a struggle than they had originally planned.
Series: Sorta. Not really, but a follow-up to 'When Blair Warner met Joanne Jefferson and Jo Polniaczek Went Insane' and 'In a Family Way', both found on Passion & Perfection.
Dedication: I've gleaned that it's anomolys b-day. Happy B-day. :-D
Notes: I've got about three different stories, including this one, in the works for Facts of Life Month. I just... you know... don't have a lot of time to actually write them. Work and all that. The other two are one-shots, but I'll get them done eventually. I swear.
--
Prologue
It was four am.
Jo Polniaczeck had a lecture, two quizzes, and an extra long shift at Over Our Heads thanks to Natalie taking on more hours than she could handle at the cannery.
The 8 month old baby currently residing in a ridiculously expensive cradle, just ten feet away from her in the middle of the darkened room, could have cared less.
She could hear it coming, the barely discernable shifting, and breath bated, she waited for it.
It came, in the form of a tiny scream, cutting through the silence of the room.
Pushing up to her elbows, Jo blinked sleepily at the cradle and then at her roommate. The overly cushioned bed beside hers was hidden in a mountain of too fluffy blankets and pillows with little frills on the side. Somewhere in the midst of all that, was Blair Warner.
"Blair," she whispered, throat clogged with sleep. "Blair!"
The mountain of blankets moved.
Sitting up, Blair looked like a zombie, nearly teetering off her bed as she shuffled in the general direction of the baby.
"Sorry," she mumbled, finger waving absently in her direction before hair wrapped in loose rollers fell off her shoulders as she bent down over the crib.
Falling back onto her bed, Jo stared up at the ceiling and wondered grumpily if it would do any good to get mad.
It wasn't as if Blair had actually ASKED if she would mind being cooped up with a baby for three weeks while her mother went who knew where. And while Tootie and Natalie liked to complain, it was Jo, the eternally light sleeper, who bore the brunt of the inconvenience. Tootie and Natalie had learned to sleep through it.
Now, it was four am and she was awake, and the baby, who should have been able to sleep through the night by now, was missing it's mother, and crying in sporadic bursts, timing them just so Jo never actually got any sleep.
Jo secretly thought Bailey hated her.
Melodic humming slowly began, and Jo rested the side of her head on her elbow as she watched her roommate balance the baby in her arms, bobbing her gently in her arms as tiny shining eyes blinked at her from the little head resting on Blair's shoulder.
Without a word, Jo sighed dramatically and threw off her covers, padding her way to the changing table Blair had bought for the occasion, opening the drawer that had the ridiculously expensive diapers Blair insisted on buying ("They hold crap, Blair," Jo had snarled at the grocery store. "She's not pooping diamonds!"), and pulling one out.
Eternally crabby, Jo had gotten used to the routine. Spreading the diaper out, she wordlessly grabbed the baby powder and liberally shook it over it. She waited, trying to get beyond her sleepy blinking to glare properly, as she felt the shift of silk against her elbow, and moved aside with her powdered diaper, to allow Blair to work on Bailey's soiled one.
"That kid poops more than my dog did," she couldn’t help grunting, and got a mildly frosty look from Blair as a result.
Blair was good at this, which, quite frankly, surprised her. For a girl raised by nannies and a barrage of step fathers and boarding schools, Blair took an odd sense of pleasure in being able to take care of her baby sister. While she would complain for days on end about getting grease stains from Jo's scattered car parts on her expensive blouses, baby vomit and saliva produced not a word from her friend's perfectly lined lips.
Crossing her arms, Jo watched slender fingers as they nimbly deconstructed the diaper, and without nary a wrinkle of her nose at the smelly deposit, wrapped it tightly into a ball.
Baby Bailey produced a different side of Blair, softer glimpses that even now, seemed rare.
Eying her friend, Jo felt a moment of dangerously mushy warmth.
"Okay," Blair said, knocking her out of her groggy thoughts, in an uncharacteristically gritty voice, lifting up the baby's legs so Jo could slide in her prepared diaper.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Jo obeyed, as Bailey watched her suspiciously, chubby hands pulled into fists.
Bailey's frequent visits had been an adjustment, but Jo would never complain. Blair had almost lost her baby sister to an abortion. It made sense she would feel such an intense connection when she was prepared to raise the baby herself in order to keep such a thing from happening.
"You're going to be a good mom," she found herself saying, unable to hide the wonder in her voice that the statement was actually true.
Blair paused briefly, taken by surprise. Jo found herself flushing under the unintended admission.
"I mean… you won't suck at it," she amended gruffly, and then reached for the newly pampered baby, an attempt at distraction. "Give her to me. Otherwise, we'll be here all night."
Bailey smelled of baby powder, and as Jo settled her against her chest, she expected her usual moment of struggle and wary glare. Curling into Jo's shoulder, the baby only babbled and sucked her thumb into her mouth, closing her eyes.
The intimate gesture of trust startled her.
Of course, Blair would catch the tentative fleeting expression of pleased relief, and of course, Blair would shoot her the cheesiest grin known to man.
"What?" she asked. She was trying to sound as annoyed as possible, but judging at the widening smile on her friend's face, she wasn't being very successful.
"Nothing," Blair said, looking infuriatingly smug. "I just think you won't be absolutely horrible at it yourself."
There was supposed to be a compliment in there somewhere.
"Yeah well," she began, shifting little Bailey in her arms. "Don’t get any ideas. We're not gonna be stay at home moms living on the same block taking our kids to softball in matching minivans."
Blair looked at her blankly. "Jo, on what planet would you be able to afford to live on the same block as I do?"
Point, Blair.
Sighing, Jo rolled her eyes and turned away, heading as quietly as she could to the crib, gingerly setting Bailey back in her crib. A brush of warmth pressing in lightly against her side revealed Blair joining her, staring lovingly down at her baby sister.
"I do want one," she said wistfully. "Not right away of course. When I find a suitable husband. With blonde hair."
Jo's brow furrowed in response. "Blonde?"
"Well of course. I want little blonde ringlets curling all over my baby's head. Like a cherub."
Jo snorted in response. "More like a kid from Children of the Corn."
Still, she told herself it was a welcome relief that Blair still possessed her standard vanity. Once in a while, her bleached blonde friend tended to throw her for a loop. Jo still wasn't quite over Blair deciding for a minute she would try lesbianism and that fiasco was over a year ago.
The memory lingered momentarily in Jo's mind, and suddenly her eyes on Blair's mouth, remembering the rather amorous conclusion of that little experiment, with Jo being a not altogether reluctant participant.
"What about you?" Feeling caught, Jo's eyes rose to meet Blair's. "When are you going to have your little grease monkeys?"
"Oh…" Jo hated when she felt this way. It was almost… bashful. In front of BLAIR. She waited to come to her senses. "I don't know."
"You do… want kids, don't you?"
"Of course!" she managed, reaching up to cover her ears when they felt warm. "I just… I don't know. I got a lot to do first. I mean… I want a career. I want to do something with my life."
Blair grinned prettily. "That's my Jo. Always wanting to save the world."
In her head, Jo knew she was being patronizing. Still, head hazy from all the damned domesticity, Jo only shrugged in response.
When Blair's fingers brushed against her cheek, she let them, ignoring her quickening heartbeat, and the way she sucked in her breath.
Suddenly her eyes were on Blair's mouth again.
"Can you two put that baby to bed so we can all get some SLEEP?!"
The crabby voice jolted her out of whatever the hell she was thinking, and Jo was glad for it.
Straightening, she coughed, and without another look at her roommate, snarled an appropriate comeback at Tootie, before burying herself in her sheets.
Wide awake, Jo listened as Blair cooed at Bailey one more time and then drifted to her bed.
She got crabby all over again.
She also decided that starting tomorrow she would suggest that Blair sleep in Mrs. Garret's room with Bailey, while she was away.
--
PART ONE.
Jo had never done well when dealing with shrieky, hyper socialites.
They were a breed she had managed to avoid her entire professional career. Unless they were slumming, looking for a cheap thrill, not many rich debutants ever made their way into the darkened streets of Hells Kitchen, the Bronx…
Do-Gooder Joanne Jefferson, with her Bohemian partner, and Blair Warner were the only exceptions.
Of course, she had come to learn to tolerate Blair (more than tolerate, but who was nitpicking) after more than a decade of experience, and while she wasn't ever sure she could truly LIKE JoJo, considering the circumstances of their first meeting, she had proven to be a remarkable ally when it came to getting warrants and navigating the somewhat confusing legal system.
Still, at the moment, both women had fully assimilated into their group of shrieking harpies, and Jo, fighting a migraine and the urge to punch Cindy's lights out when she insisted on playing some stupid game with cotton balls, had grabbed a plate of pigs in the blanket (the only edible thing on the entire catering menu, and the only thing she could pronounce) and escaped to the terrace of the penthouse.
What the hell was Jo thinking, letting Blair host the baby shower here?
"Are those from inside?"
Ten feet away, settled comfortably astride the balcony railing, Maureen Johnson took a long drag from her cigarette, booted leg dangling over the edge.
Brow arching curiously, Jo offered up her plate. "When'd you sneak out?"
"Right around the time they started the game with the clothes pins," Maureen rasped, smoke drifting from her lips, head falling back against the wall she was resting against. Nodding in thanks, she grabbed a pig and popped it in her mouth with her free hand.
Joanne's partner's too red lipstick was a stark contrast to the pale complexion, and staring out somberly at the city, she seemed lost in contemplation.
Unable to fight the cop inside of her, Jo frowned at the lit cigarette in her hand. "You know, second hand smoke is bad for the baby."
She got rolling eyes in response. "You don't think Joanne's told me that? Everyday, she brings home another god-damned pamphlet. I told her to be glad it's not pot." Jo immediately winced. "And yeah, then she always makes that face." Maureen confirmed. Sighing, she immediately let the cigarette go. Jo watched as it fell to the city streets, fifty stories below. "I don't do it around Joanne. Besides, I'm quitting," Maureen announced, swinging her leg back over the balcony and planting both her booted feet on the safety of the terrace. "That was my last one."
"How iconic," Jo remarked.
"Fuck you," Maureen responded.
"You wish."
"Please," she drawled, elbows resting on the balcony. "One pretentious self-righteous Jo is more than enough for me."
This was, of course, an awkward conversation. Jo knew Maureen didn't like her. In her grief at the death of her friend Mimi, she had quickly associated Jo as one of the detectives who had arrested her in connection with a murder of a drug dealer. Jo had not been there at the time of the arrest, but had received a phone call from Joanne. Mimi had been released and Jo had driven her back to their squatter's palace personally, but Maureen had never forgiven her for "allowing" their dying friend to spend a night in jail.
Maureen and her friends had never trusted the police, and that was how Maureen saw her: nothing but a badge.
Jo didn't care. She didn't exactly think Maureen hung the moon either.
Still, the fast friendship between Blair and Jojo, and the miraculous reality that both couples had managed to stay together, insisted that they dwell in each other's orbit. At the moment, driven outside of her own home by a bunch of shallow pretentious vacuous ditzes (she wasn't being harsh, she was being honest), Jo was glad for the company.
"Shouldn't you be in there?" she asked, jerking her head in the direction of the party. Dark curls tumbling over her shoulders, swaying in the breeze, Maureen just looked at her. "It's your baby shower," Jo reminded her. "You should be in there with Joanne."
A cold smile floated on the other woman's face. "What, I'm not being the supportive, loving partner?"
"You think you are?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"You're on the balcony."
"I'm not the only one."
Jo sighed, irritated. "It's not my god-damned shower."
Maureen studied her intently. "Right." She said, in the way that Joanne said it, when she was trying to make a point. "But Joanne told me you've been trying for a while." A hot flush spread down Jo's body. Maureen's brow rose suggestively. "Sure you're doing it right?"
"Maureen, what the hell is your point?" she snapped, unable to fight the ache in her chest, and hating herself for it.
"You think it's easy for Princess Blair to watch Joanne get what she wanted so easily?"
Jo's eyes closed, and then shot open, glancing through the open windows to settle on her best friend and lover. Blair, ever the perfect hostess, laughed the loudest as Megan crawled along the plush carpet, scooping up cotton balls.
Jo exhaled unsteadily.
"Not so perfect, are you?" Jo knew Maureen had just barely resisted calling her a pig. Old habits died hard.
"Blair will get her baby," Jo answered, fists shoved into her pockets, suddenly too sad to be angry. "Allright?"
Maureen didn't look at her. Striking features studied the city below them, as intently as if she were reading a book. "I was thinking I was lucky." Jo blinked at the sudden change of conversation. "That's what I was doing out here." The voice ended with a wistful rasp.
"What?"
Green eyes met her own vividly. "I got two friends in the grave and the ones I got left have one foot in it. Mark's dealing with Roger's relapse and I'm sitting on a fucking penthouse balcony with my wife, whose gonna have a baby."
A solid lump burned its way into Jo's throat, and she glanced away self consciously, coming forward. "Are you telling me you're having an unselfish moment, here?" Glancing at her, Maureen's mouth twitched. "Mark's the father," Jo said curiously, as gently as possible. "Right?"
Maureen nodded, her small smile affectionate. "Yeah. He's my ex."
"That's not weird for you?"
"I woke up one day and I was hopelessly in love with an anal, over-attentive control freak without a penis." Maureen looked at her. "After you experience that, weird isn't a problem anymore."
Jo found herself smiling, despite herself. "You going back in there?"
There was only a moment's hesitation, before Maureen nodded, plucking another pig from the abandoned plate and popping it in her mouth.
"You coming?"
"In a minute."
Maureen stepped away, hand on the handle, apparently steadying herself for the burst of hysterical coos.
"Jo." The drama queen looked remarkably sincere. "Good luck. You know… with that baby stuff."
The door opened, and upon hearing the squeals, Maureen's resolve wavered. Exchanging similar tortured smiles, Jo grinned as Maureen shrugged, taking in a deep breath, before flinging open the door wider, and heading back into Joanne's baby shower.
"Allright!" Jo heard above the noise. "Someone pass me one of those stupid lame clothespins."
--
Less than ten minutes after Jo had finally succeeded in escaping the 'shrieking harpies', as her lover had so lovingly put them, she had returned to the festivities, slipping in beside her with a pained but stoic expression.
Blair found it insufferably cute, which raised her spirits slightly.
Painting on a carefree smile and maintaining a charming disposition when one was feeling empty inside grew more difficult with time. Blair had gotten lazy and she blamed that on Jo.
It was difficult to be shallow when one's partner, soul-mate, or whatever Jo ended up becoming was so infuriatingly sweet and sincere and ... intense about everything.
It was Blair's curse, to be saddled with someone as earnest and chivalrous as Jo. Her little greasemonkey who, in high school, had thought nothing of stealing the school van had become a paradigm of virtue, a servant of her people, wandering through the muck and grime of Alphabet City and then coming home to complain about it all.
Blair didn't mind. To be perfectly honest, she had been relieved when Jo began to vent about her job without prodding. Jo had a history of internalizing things, it had been a thorn in their relationship years before they had introduced sex into the equation. As much as Blair tried to make herself believe she didn't mind feeling ignored, the painful truth was that, she did, in fact, mind it. Very much.
Especially when it came to Jo, who had always mattered more than anyone else in the world.
The fact that Jo was trying, had finally allowed herself to try, meant more to Blair than anything else ever had, because it was, after all, Jo, and the Jo she remembered would have rather chewed her own foot off than admit she needed Blair.
Needing Blair implied weakness, and that sort of stubbornness had led to the ultimate stupidity on Jo's part: she had married someone else.
Truthfully, Blair was still a little angry about that. She ignored that emotion, for the most part, because she knew she played a tiny (TINY) part in allowing that to happen. She had kept quiet after their forbidden kiss, all those years ago, dismissing it as a silly amorous moment of insanity. When she couldn't dismiss it anymore, Blair had kept it to herself, under the deluded notion that somehow, Jo would come to her senses on her own.
Of course, Jo hadn't. Jo had married Rick, and Blair, at the time infatuated with what she later realized to be a male version of Jo named Casey, had allowed it to happen.
They had wasted years, would still have wasted them, if Blair hadn't finally forced them both to confront the issue.
Blair found it ridiculously ironic that she was considered the dense one in the relationship.
Still, for all of Jo's faults, Blair found it obscenely hard for settle for anyone else. Not when she knew what she wanted. There had been a glimmer, with Casey, and for a while, after Jo had been married and Blair had been particularly delusional, she actually thought he might have been the one. Sure, he didn't want to marry her, but he had loved her, and in her weakness, the night Jo was married and more than likely consummating her love with Rick, she had given him her virginity.
Blair wouldn't consider it a mistake, but she did consider it rash. Casey had gotten sentimental and Blair had only been depressed. Casey wasn't Jo, no one was, really, and if Blair wasn't going to get what she wanted, she decided there was no point in settling.
Blair was eternally grateful that now, she didn't have to. She had Jo, and even if Blair still wasn't completely sure how it had happened, she knew better than to question her good fortune.
Which didn't mean it wasn't work at times. Since their coupling, Blair had discovered a side of Jo she had only glimpsed before: a jealous, insecure Jo, who somehow was always afraid. It was that Jo that would push her away, that Jo that got possessive under the oddest circumstances, that Jo who struggled the hardest with the very idea that Blair would meet a man and like him so much she would want to have his baby.
Jo had asked her once after they had gotten together, if she had been with another woman before her. Blair had made the mistake of being honest and saying yes.
Now, Blair couldn't even speak to an attractive woman without seeing a glint in Jo's eyes, and heaven forbid she actually make a compliment about another woman in Jo's presence.
She knew there would come a time when she would find the behavior infuriating, and at times she already did, and still, she found her crabby grumpy care bear charming even in her jealous tirades.
She was contemplating all of this at the end of this very long night, after pushing the very pregnant and grateful Joanne Jefferson and her crabby and tired lover Maureen out the door.
Jo had retreated early, energy sapped thanks to their energetic party guests, and Blair was left alone in their penthouse, to glance at baby banners and left over cheesy decorations of storks and diapers Megan had insisted on bringing over.
Blair stood in their penthouse and considered her life and what it had become.
A startling conclusion came to her, even as she pressed her hand to her flat stomach and knew there was no baby growing inside of her.
Everything wasn't perfect. Everything wasn't easy. She wasn't perfect. She wasn't easy.
But this was her life.
Blair was astonished to realize she could actually be fine with that.
--
It was past midnight, when Blair slipped into bed beside Jo, shifting on the long mattress, murmuring a casual loving 'Goodnight, Jo' and turning to flick off the lamp on her side, snuggling into the pillows.
It was ridiculously formal for someone like Blair. Jo normally couldn't keep her cuddly companion from suffocating her, snuggling into her neck and throwing her leg over Jo's, trapping her.
Jo had been completely uncomfortable with it at first - she had never been a cuddly kind of girl. Blair had known that, but as usual, ignored it, and what was forced restraint had become welcome habit. Not that she'd let Blair know.
Still, she had made a visible effort to be pleasant tonight... well, okay, as pleasant as Jo COULD be under the circumstances, and instead of a loving kiss and a flowery speech about how proud Blair was of her (after which Jo could have been suitably annoyed and only slightly receptive to Blair's little pecks against her neck), she had gotten a 'good night' and nothing else.
She reached over and clicked on her own little lamp.
"That's it?"
There was a moment of silence, before her girlfriend shifted and living up on her elbows, looking at her through sleepy eyes. "Pardon?"
"That's it? I go through an evening of hell and it's just 'Good Night'?" Jo repeated.
Her lover stared at her as if she had grown another head.
"Jo? I have a very early meeting tomorrow."
With that, Blair offered her a tiny smile, and then flopped back on the bed, turning her back to her.
Something was definitely wrong.
"Tough," she found herself snapping. "You're not sleeping until you tell me what's going on."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Blair muttered from her side of the bed.
"Right. Usually, I can't get you to shut up about a party."
"Then consider this a blessing in disguise, Jo."
"It's about the baby, isn't it?"
There was a small, discernable hitch of Blair's breath. "What baby?"
"Exactly." Blair didn't move. Biting her bottom lip, Jo closed her eyes, unsure what to do now that she had exposed the open wound. "Hey." Reaching forward, she tentatively squeezed a silky shoulder. "We're gonna get there. You have to believe that."
The anger was gone now, replaced with gentle concern, and it must have been that, that finally caused her lover to turn over, cheek half buried into her pillow as she stared at her with somber eyes.
Blair looked beautiful at night, big brown eyes luminous and sparking in the moonlight.
"I do," she finally admitted, a breathless sigh. "I just... I don't want to talk about it now."
Blair had once told Jo she was like a dog with a bone when she had something on her mind. "Why not?"
Blair regarded her. "Because that seems to be all we talk about," she heard finally. Jo frowned in reaction. "Because ever since we decided we were going to make this happen that's... all we've focused on."
It wasn't what she was expecting to hear. She had been expecting a retread on their usual fights about the baby they were trying to make: Jo not wanting to know the identity of the donor, Blair insisting on knowing, afraid they'd wind up with a serial killer, not even wanting to consider adoption until they were absolutely sure-
Blair was right. Jo was like a dog with a bone. A bulldog.
"You think we've become obsessed with it."
Blair didn't respond immediately. Curling further into the pillow, she sighed, and regarded her lover.
"Do you know what I realized tonight," she began suddenly, voice soft with reverence for the darkness of the night, "As I saw JoJo getting that bassinet and breast pump and ... everything else?"
"What?"
Blair smiled. "That as much as I want a baby - I'm happy just being with you." Reaching forward, Blair laid a soft hand on her cheek, tracing the skin gently. "I never wanted this to be something we had to prove to ourselves. And I never wanted this to be something you think I needed to be happy. You make me happy. Admittedly, you also make me furious, but after more than 15 years, I've learned to cope."
It was a rather calm statement coming from someone like Blair, who had presented the idea of a baby to her months ago like she was asking for them to invest in a new stock portfolio.
Back then it had seemed so easy, to look through the binder Jojo had put together for them and plan for a baby like they could plan for a retirement plan. Jo had always been one for causes, and after the initial shock that she was actually considering having a baby with Blair Warner of all people had passed, she had lobbied hard for it. She had caught a glimpse of their future, tripping over baby toys and fighting with Blair because a baby didn't need three hundred dollar booties, and she had craved it.
That was before months of arguments about donors and fertility tests and failed pregnancy sticks and the unspoken fear that maybe, just maybe, Jo would never be able to feel a life growing inside Blair, because newly discovered ovarian cysts had never figured in Jo's plans.
Blair had always been obsessed with being perfect, and the idea that something was so wrong inside of her she could actually be incapable of carrying a baby wasn't something that neither could actually entertain.
It would be just like Blair not to admit defeat, but rather, declare she was just fine with not having a baby at all.
Years ago, Jo would see this and just get angry, because it was inherently selfish, and just so... BLAIR to quit rather than really try, no matter what the consequences.
But this was the present, and Jo had learned she loved Blair, faulty flaws and all. God knew, Blair loved to point out she had a few of her own.
Looking into the heartbreaking expression that was Blair trying to be blasé about something she so obviously still wanted, Jo didn't have the heart to get angry.
"How about we take a break from all the baby talk," she finally compromised, managing as sweet a smile as she could, as Blair's face betrayed a barely noticeable expression of relief. "And focus on the important thing."
A perfectly shaped brow rose suggestively. "And that is?"
"The fact that I spent my afternoon in the company of the most annoying women on the planet, and I haven't been thanked properly for it."
Blair's grin grew wider, mock sympathy flirting across her features. "Oh poor Jo," she gasped dramatically. "The horrors!"
"Damn right, the horrors!" she snorted. "I had to put a string around Joanne's stomach and guess her damned stomach size, Blair!"
"No!" Blair's breath sucked in sympathetically.
"I had to play Baby Bingo!"
That actually got a laugh, a beautiful one that made Jo smile in return, as Blair leaned over and curled her fingers over Jo's cheek, looking into her face lovingly.
"What can I do to make it up to you?"
Jo had a few ideas, but before she could voice them, Blair's mouth had already descended, and was pressing against hers lovingly.
Sighing into the kiss, Jo didn't protest.
It was a start.
--
TBC.