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Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

It was dark and hushed in Groovy Tunes today, and the quiet music was discordant and harsh.

Everything had been so perfect. When the ichor had pulled her into darkness, when her eyes had gone black and her skin gray. Her body had mutated and she had known peace. All the little ticks of her brain had made sense. She had been a gear in a larger clock; a puzzle-piece in a grand puzzle. Nothing was strange. Nothing was wrong. She hadn't been mad at all.

Her body was slowly returning. So she had been mad. She had thought herself sanest while completely, entirely mad. What did that say for her?

She had endangered her child; what better proof that she was unfit to care for it? Had the child experienced her madness? There was no way to tell.

Alice sat in Groovy Tunes. It was open, even if none of the lights were on. She preferred the shadows. They helped her to think. Or to hide, as the case may be, though hiding from one's self required more effort than dark.

(open-ocd-free)

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It turned out that when one had a rambling two year-old, nothing -- not even going to your husband's office to grab the extra diaper bag -- was easy. Rory had parked her car at the end of the causeway, ready to take the trip up to Stars Hollow with Juliet. But first they'd had to get coffee, which meant Juliet had needed a cookie. Of course. And then they'd needed to go pet every doggie they saw in the park as they made their way to the school, and they'd had to look at all the flowers, and of course, Rory had also heard the alphabet song about two dozen times now, over all of this.

She imagined the car wouldn't be any fun, either.

But most importantly, Juliet could now open doors. So when she randomly ran off to try and open the door to Groovy Tunes, Rory had little choice but to follow her. "Juliet, it's not even open," she told her, even as the door itself swung open. "See? No lights."

"Songs," Juliet argued, struggling away as Rory tried to pick her up. "Hi!" she added, running around to where Alice's feet were sticking out and waving a chubby little hand at her.

"Oh, hi," Rory added as soon as she'd spotted Alice as well, trailing after Juliet to now successfully grab her by the hand. "I'm sorry, she's a little high-energy today. Didn't, um, mean to bother you." ...not that Rory really could tell if she'd interrupted anything. It didn't even seem like the store was open.

Alice stared at the child. Not hers. Hers looked like Matilda; this was a stranger's face.

Alice shook her head and willed herself to pretend some sort of competence, at least until her shift ended.

"Songs," she said, as charitably as she could manage, as she dusted her hands off on her jeans and wobbled her way, carefully, towards her knees. "The songs live here, when they aren't vacationing on the charts. They've little discs in little rows. Would you mind fetching the lights? The songs were having a nap."

Once on her knees, she could attempt standing. It was harder with her balance so ridiculous these days.

Juliet, eager to be a Good Helper, ran to push the light switches up. She had just learned how to do that without touching, but Mommy said that was just for at home. (Because her control was terrible and she broke things.)

She couldn't quite reach, all the same, so Rory quickly flicked the light switch before hurrying over to Alice. She held out a hand. "Need help? I remember those days. Standing up's a freaking production when you're that far along."

"I feel a bit Humpty-Dumpty," Alice agreed, taking Rory's arm with a rueful smile. "On top of which, I seem to have lost my toes. I've been told that happens, at this stage, and it's naught to worry over, but I like to keep in touch with my toes, and having them incommunicado is a bit distressing."

She could write letters. She had considered that, the last time she was as big as a house.

"I made my husband tell me what mine looked like," Rory told her, smiling a bit. "Not that toes are interesting, but it's worrisome to lose 'em."

"One never knows what toes might be getting up to," Alice said. "Besides, one isn't supposed to add new parts and lose others like some bizarre children's toy. The potato one, with all the strange facial accessories. Am I the only person who finds that creature to be disturbing?"

Granted, she hadn't experienced it in her own childhood; perhaps it was only creepy when you saw it first as an adult.

"We won't get one for Juliet. She keeps asking," Rory said, shaking her head. "But...well, my husband finds it more disturbing than I do." Probably all the dismemberment. "I'm more creeped out by like, the TV shows. I have no idea who's designing children's toys and programming these days, but they need a kick to the head."

"I'm not familiar with many children's shows," she said. "I don't believe Leto's world has much by way of television, so I suppose that's a small blessing. I can't imagine the responsibility of teaching someone the entirety of right and wrong. Monitoring every influence to come their way for inappropriate messages, and setting a good example at all times, to boot."

If Alice was looking a bit green around the gills, it wasn't late-term morning sickness, this time. Nor was it wobbliness, as she'd finally gotten steady on her feet.

Rory was watching her carefully, because she remembered exactly what that was like. The terror that she was going to mess up everything, the sheer amount of responsibility -- she still felt it, a lot of the time. "A lot of it is sort of just...winging it," she offered. "I mean, you face things as they come. And when they're little, they're not particularly concerned with their moral compasses, and neither should you be."

Juliet chose this moment to toddle back, hugging onto her mother's legs shyly. "Hi," she said to Alice, softer this time as she shoved her thumb in her mouth.

"Hello," Alice said, making an effort to seem casual as she smiled. Ordinarily, she'd at least kneel down to put herself on the child's level, but considering the effort it had taken to get her up, that would be counterproductive. "Your mother and I were just discussing unfortunate toys and responsibility and other big words I'm probably confusing you with. Do you like cats?"

As if it was an afterthought, to Rory, she added, "Were you ever scared you'd ... break her?"

They seemed very delicate, when they were small.

Juliet managed to get 'cats' out of that and perked up a little, though she still stayed by Rory's leg. "Kitty?"

"All the time," Rory confided softly. "Still am. Anakin is, too. He keeps trying to convince me we should raise her in a bubble or something. But when she was little, I was pretty sure I was going to drop her. Never did, though. Instincts kick in on that kind of thing, no matter how clumsy you are."

"Kitty," Alice said. "Would you like to come and see her? She's probably hiding by that window just over there. That's where she takes naps."

She smiled, gently, her eyes still on the young girl.

"I don't know if I have any instincts of that kind," she admitted. "I've ... I've spent too long learning how to survive, no matter how harsh the climate. Softness doesn't come easily. And if I fail her ..."

Another fire, this one consuming a crib. She couldn't conceal the shudder.

"Kitty?" Juliet asked again, now looking for the cat, Rory's leg-slash-security post forgotten. "KIIIITTTTYYYYY?"

Poor cat was going to get toddler-hugged shortly here.

"That's how my husband is," Rory said quietly, shaking her head. "Believe me, he's had a rough time of it. Way harder than me. And -- I mean, part of it is being young. I was twenty when I got pregnant with Juliet, and my mom was sixteen when she had me. It's scary, and you don't have to be soft to be a parent. I mean, I don't exactly coo and speak in baby talk with my daughter. People like that drive me nuts."

Dinah recognized the siren call of 'kitty,' and had weighed the pros and cons of making an appearance. Attention, even of the toddler variety, was winning out over its possible consequences, and so there was a tiny black-and-white nose peering around one of the shelves, sniffing towards Juliet.

Dinah moved slowly, these days, but she had the patience that came with age. Her own kittens had pulled and teethed and fussed, after all.

"I suppose it seems like a mother should be a warm place," Alice said, considering the matter. "I'm oddities and sharp angles. How did your husband adjust, then? I --"

Well. She wasn't getting any less pregnant. She might as well confide in someone.

"I've spent years in an asylum, completely mad," she said. "I've no family. The child's father doesn't know yet; his sister does, and I suppose she's all that I have in this world, except for a suitcase and an arthritic cat. I have never been this scared in my entire life."

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Groovy Tunes, Tuesday

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