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| Scene Title | Happy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | What was expected to be an awkward and unsure meeting turns into something much better when daughter comes to see mother. |
| Date | April 15, 2011 |
Village Renaissance Building: Elaine and Quinn's Flat
The evening is closing in. Curfew still a couple hours away, but there's a twinge of anxiety in the air. Because there's someone out there. A meeting that needs happen. It's like the opening of the song has played, but the singing hasn't yet begun.
But before the twosome of the apartment can head out to try and find someone, there's a knock on the door.
Adel stands outside it, dressed in a yellow slick coat for the rain and a woolen hat that holds down her brown hair. Even when they look out to see who's knocking, she's already rocking on her feet, back and forth from her heels to her toes, waiting anxiously for the door to open.
The sound of the knock startles Elaine from putting away leftovers from dinner into the fridge. The sound practically knocks the food from her hands and she sets the tupperware down, eyes going to the door as she makes a mad dash for it. "I'll get it, I'll get it!" Carefully reaching and unlocking the door, she swings it open, standing in the doorframe as she looks at Adel.
"H—" Elaine clears her throat, blinking back tears. "Hi!"
Quinn can barely hear the dorr from where she sits, cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV. Headphones sit around her neck, still blaring music as she puts pen to paper - to blank sheet music, actually. Scrawling notes in 3/4 time over bars and across paper as she hums over the music playing, she only perks up whe she hears Elaine says he'll get it, leaning over a bit so that she can see past the couch.
It's not hard to see who's on the other side, and for a moment Quinn freezes, a hand moving to pause her iPhone. She doesn't speak, she just slowly rises up to her feet.
"Hi," the young woman says— though Adel realizes the irony of being older than her mom, even if her mom is taller and lighter of hair and skin— in a lot of ways her coloring had come from the father's contribution, though her face shape seems to have more in common with Elaine. Especially when she smiles.
Which she happens to be doing now. "Can…" she starts, then decides to not finish the question and instead launches through the door and wraps her arms around the taller woman. For the first moment, there's no acknowledgment of Quinn. But daughter needs to hug her mom.
Elaine was going to valiantly try not to cry, but the second she feels the hug coming, her arms wrap tightly around Adel and she bursts into tears. The hug is a clinging-to-dear-life-not-letting-you-go hug, tears streaming down her face for a long moment before she even tries to say anything.
“’Course you can come in… I'm so glad you're here… I'm so glad you're okay."
This is one of those kind of awkward moments Quinn knew was going to happen. Her music notebook is tossed lazily to the side, eyes on the pair of women. She starts forward, but stops to lean against the couch as she watches them. Close enough to hear and be reached if Elaine needs her, far enough to give them a bit of privacy - the same thing Elaine had afforded her the day before. Though, perhaps thanks to that meeting, she doesn't look nervous, or upset. Her arms are just folded at her lap as she watches and smiles.
"Don't be silly, mom," Adel says, finally able to say what she's wanted to call the woman since day one of meeting her. It had been hard to always call her by her name, though she would never admit it. Sometimes it's good to make the hard stuff look easy! Like not crying. Pulling back out of the hug, she wipes fingers at her mom's face, smiling plainly and shaking her head. "Nothing was going to happen to me. I'm super careful." A lot of the time.
Even when she has Joshua fire her like a cannon ball at oncoming vehicles. Not that that's happened lately!!
"Hi Q!" she says as she leans around her mom's tall figure in greeting, still looking cheerful.
"I dunno, I thought maybe you'd like… disappear or something because things are different," Elaine admits, though she does smile. The tears aren't bad tears! She's happy, she really is. "Always wanted someone to call me mom…" She says, wistfully, before she moves to carefully shut the door behind them before actually heading into the apartment proper. Quinn is afforded a smile from the redhead as she moves inward.
"There are some leftovers if you're hungry… I—" Elaine takes in a deep breath. "This is really weird. Was this really weird for you, Adel?"
Quinn offers a weak smile at Adel, her hand moving in a wave not unlike the one Adel had seen Ingrid give Quinn at the concert; small, fingers curling in afterwards. "It's nice t' see you, Adel." The truth is, Quinn's still a little scared, if far less so than she had been a day earlier. Her tone is pleasant, hand lowering as she pushes off the couch. She still doesn't make an effort to move directly to the other two, but she is keeping up with them.
"It was weird, but it was also cool to see you guys when you were young— and to get to know dad," Adel says with a bounce to her step as she moves. "But really, disappearing? That's silly— I'm not going to disappear, I mean I'm right here, you know?" She says, seeming to think that the very thought is crazy— or maybe she'd really just never thought about it before.
There's a pause where she looks up at the ceiling, and then dismisses it. It couldn't possibly happen.
"I don't need anything to eat, but… just a minute," she says, squeezing her mom with one arm before she disengages.
And Quinn finds herself suddenly hugged too.
"I don't know how these things work!" Elaine protests. "I mean, I know a little… I went into the past once. But I don't know how these things work, I just got worried that since things are different…" She watches as Adel disengages to hug Quinn.
That gets a smile. A broad one. Elaine can't help it, and she looks at the two as she reaches up and wipes her eyes again to keep from more tears spilling.
"I told you she wouldn't vanish," Quinn offers, somewhat quietly teasing Elaine as he eyes move from Adel to her fiancée. "You should've heard her whi-"
And then she's cut off by a hug directed at her, which was something she honestly wasn't really expecting, reflected in the "eep!" sound she makes as the younger woman's arms wrap around her. It takes a moment, but she does return a the hug, a great feeling of relief washing over her. "You should go hug your mother more, not me," she jokingly chastises, shaking her head.
"Man, you're all— you haven't had those dreams yet I guess," Adel says with a tsking sound under her breath, looking back at her mom, and then at Quinn again. "You're my mom too, you know. I had four mommies to make up for no daddy, and then a bunch of aunties who were almost mommies too. Sable liked to think she was an auntie, but…" she waves a hand as if she always thought it was silly.
"Sorry I didn't tell you guys earlier," she adds as she steps back, scratching at her cheek in an embarrassed fashion. "I wanted to, but— wasn't allowed. Magnes knows too, though. I still have to see Sable— Do you think she'll let me stay in the band? I mean destiny totally put me here too. I travelled back thirty years to be in the band!"
"See, Robyn, you're family too," Elaine says, smile widening. "And Sable would think she's an aunt…" There's the slightest touch of sadness in her tone, but she nods a tiny bit. "Oh, I'm sure Sable will be fine. She rolls with the punches. Takes a lot to really get to her, I think. You'd have to stab her in the heart or something to get her to kick you out. She's tough."
Those dreams yet gets a bit of an odd look from Quinn. Not displeased, but not entirely thrilled, and a bit surprised. She's a bit more surprised by the sentiment that she's family to Adel. That brings a nice smile to her face. "If Sable kicks you out of the band, I'll help you smack her upside the head," Quinn notes, giving a bit of a chuckle. She almost makes a joke about Magnes still being in the band, but it seems… inappropriate now. Instead, she just looks up towards Elaine with a smile as starts to move towards her. "Christ. Thirty years. I- Jesus, I'd be almost sixty…"
"Yeah, you were old," Adel teases with a laugh, reaching over and pushing against the older woman's arm. Though not that much older, really. She's had six months to cope with the weirdness that it's more a relief to get to finally tell the truth and talk to them like she wants. There's still relief for another reason. Sable may not kick her out. After a moment, brown eyes seek out her bio-mom— one feature they share. "You really thought I'd disappear?"
"We've had dreams," Elaine says, though she grins at Quinn's mention of being sixty. "You old lady. I'll still be young and youthful!" She teases, but she looks back to Adel intently, brow furrowed just a little bit. "I don't know. I thought that I might somehow unmake you. Like because things are different you'd cease to exist because you technically hadn't happened and might not happen. I don't want you to disappear. You aren't allowed to, okay?"
"Dreams, yeah. But- not really… ones like that." Quinn rolls her shoulders a bit, looking off to the side a bit nervously. "Just… one with you. An'…" Quinn stops herself and waves a hand dismissively. This is Adel's moment, she's not going to bring up Jolene, at least not yet.
"We… don’t really know anythin' about this stuff," Quinn voices, still looking off. "I mean… besides the visions from the summer. An' some… shenanigans in the fall." Shenanigans both Quinn and Elaine remember well, for different reasons. She shrugs again. "It's one thing when we go t' the past. Bein' on the other end…"
"Of course things have changed— that's the point of time travel, isn't it? You don't just jump through time without affecting things," Adel says in her strangely cheerful and dismissive way. "I can't disappear, anyway— I'm here. Just cause your future's changed doesn't mean my past has."
Elaine shrugs a little, her gaze going back to Quinn for a long moment before she looks to Adel. "I just wanted to make sure, you know… and how do you know? I mean…" She pauses for a moment. "When I went into the past, I went to make sure no one messed with Sable. Someone was gonna go change things, in her life… prevent her from being the person we know her to be. But… when I went into the past to fix it, I found another Sable. This was a Sable whose life had been changed. She came to stop us. I just worried that… I don't know. I just don't want anything to happen to you. I mean, you're a friend first and foremost but… you're my daughter too, as weird as it is saying that."
It's weird to hear, too, even though Quinn had made a comment about it earlier herself. Her gaze returns to the other two, rubbing at her face a bit. "It's been… just something we weren't really sure about. Something we puzzled over a bit. You know, like… what she said, an' how t' approach it." Quinn is actually really glad it was Adel who came t' them. "An' I know I was worried about, like… I dunno. Stupid stuff, I guess." Eyes close for a moment, and she shakes her head. "We're happy t' have you here, though, as weird as it is."
"Well, I don't know how it works, but I imagine if we were just gonna disappear a few of us would already be gone, with how much we've messed things up," Adel says quietly to herself, considering the situation a little in her head. She'd heard the tale of otherSable, most likely from the lack of surprise. "Ah, I— " she suddenly adds, pressing her fingers on the bridge of her nose and squeezing.
She wasn't supposed to say part of that…
With a rush, the young drummer tries to cover it up with a rush, "I honestly didn't know how it'd work either— but I think I'll still exist as long as you guys remember me. Like a song. Only written once, but lasts for eternity."
Elaine looks back at Adel intently, brow furrowed in concern. "Just as long as you don't disappear on me. I think I've lost enough family in my lifetime, don't need to lose you too." She murmurs, but she looks back between the two. "I'm not sure why you'd come back, though… are you trying to stop all the bad shit that happens? Life doesn't look so great, in the future. I mean… other than the good stuff. The good stuff was nice." She, at least, had good dreams. "Are you here to help us?" There's a bit of a pleading tone that seems to beg that Adel not be some evil monster from the future.
"That's what I said," Quinn remarks. Whatever slip-up was made, she doesn't seem to day it. "That… thinks are different enough now that if anythin' like that was going t' happen it would've." She rolls her shoulders, feeling that the conversation has taken a bit of an uncomfortable turn. "I've… seen people in dreams that are dead now," she says quietly. "Seen things that I really doubt are going t' happen now." Some of which is sad in its own way. "So, as far as I'm concerned, you're around t' stay, not just vanish." That comes with a smile, Quinn looking a bit off to the side.
The mood seems tot have taken a bit of a downturn, in her opinion. So, she moves past the other two, towards the freezer. "I'm going t' thaw an' Oreo pie. You guys don't have a choice in havin' some. Just make sure there's no crumbs on the floor, I caught Inger siffin' them with intent t' eat the other day." Where is that damn cat, anyway?
Elaine's question, though, that gets a sympathetic look from the Irishwoman, and once the frozen pie is set aside on the counter, Quinn moves behind her, hugging her tightly. Yeah, it feels a little weird with Adel there, but she's trying not to let that stop her. "That's the one thing I'm sore about," is said without anger or disappointment. A smile, actually. "You know you could've told us. That, at the very least, we'd do what we could."
"Oh, Inger. I heard about her— I even had one of her great-grand-kittens for a while!" For some reason, this seems to have distracted Adel sufficiently as she looks around for the puffball of calico squished face doom. "Oh there you are!" she leaps down onto her knees and reaches to pick up the cat and hold her against her chest. "Awwww— my Mèo was yellow and white, no black— Black would have been so cute on him."
Oh wait there's a serious conversation here… Back on her feet, she scritches the cat's head as she responds, "I can't promise I will always be here, I mean no one can. But while I'm here I'm here, and I love you. That's what I can promise you."
And then as if she hadn't just said something meaningful, as well as avoided topics she may not want to go into, she turns the cat around to say, "I love you too squish-face," and kiss it on the nose.
Elaine can't help but giggle. Squish-face. Good description of Inger. The redhead beams, looking towards Inger and Adel. It's hard for her not to smile. "I know. I just want to make sure you're safe. And if that's all you can promise… I'm okay with that." For now is somewhat left off the end, but certainly present in her gaze as she watches her daughter and the cat. "Robyn… I couldn't tell Sable about what happened. Hiro had rules."
"Hiro's an ass," is a quick and humorous response from Quinn, at least in intention. She's also smiling, beaming at Adel and the kitten. "Hear that, Inger? Your legacy of being a colourful squished face kitten lives on!" Another giggles, and Quinn shakes her head. It's a nice moment, the downbeat turn seemingly left behind as she stands there, watching the cat and Elaine's daughter, still hugging her fiancée - though a bit looser now. "As long as you don't skip out on us without sayin' goodbye," said entirely seriously, but with a joking tone, "I think we'll all take what we can get."
"Technically some would say I was breaking the rules getting in the band at all— I should've been just a random fan who admired your work," Adel says, keeping the cat as she moves to wait for the pie that's going to be coming eventually. No crumbs, after all, though she'll be less messy than in the dreams. One would hope.
"So you two are together, right?" she asks rather suddenly, looking at the two of them. And the hugging.
"Yeah, if you have to go somewhere, you have to tell us, at least," Elaine says, leaning back lightly against Quinn. She looks back to Adel at the sudden question, her face flushing as she holds up her left hand, where a Celtic engagement ring sits, all emerald and diamonds and white-gold. "Engaged. Sable, she…" She trails off for a moment. "Sable broke my heart pretty badly. She's with Delilah."
The question catches Quinn off guard too. This wasn't something she ahd been planning on directly addressing, not yet at least. Her cheeks pink, nervously looking down and off to the side. "We weren't going t' tell anyone quite yet," she responds quietly, looking back at Adel. "But… I guess if anyone should know first-" besides the three other people who already know - "it's you."
In some ways Adel would say her mission is to catch people off-guard. It certainly does make her smile at the blushing. Not every day a daughter gets to embarrass two of her many moms! Bending down, the persian is set back on the floor to pad off as she moves closer to look at the ring with a nod. "It's a bit early to get engaged!" she says with a look at them, but it's not disappointed or angry. Or sad. Or upset. Though there is a hint of chiding. Just a little. Another thing daughters don't get to do often.
Then she's stepping closer to hug them both. "Just don't rush into it. You guys got thirty years, hopefully more, to figure things out!"
"We aren't rushing. It's just a promise that, if it feels right, we'll get married in a year. And if it doesn't feel right, we'll just put it off for longer," Elaine says, moving to hug Adel gently. "It's nice to know we've got time. We're going to take advantage of it, I'm sure." She squeezes a little tighter after a moment.
"I'm glad you get to know Magnes, though. Just… be careful with him. I love him to pieces but he is… he's Magnes. Be careful. He can get carried away and he doesn't always have the most sensible ideas. About anything," the redhead points out. "And Sable… I dunno. I guess I have no advice there. Don't think she'll kick you out, but… don't get your hopes up that she'll react like the rest of us."
"It's a promise, more than anything," Quinn reiterates. This is a little surreal to her. She can only imagine how it feels for Elaine. Still, when Adel moves to hug the two of them, she readily hugs back, letting out a bit of a happy sigh. This has gone much, much better than she expected it to. A good thing for everyone present.
"We love Magnes. We really do," she notes, laughing a bit. An improvement from the last time she spoke to Adel about Magnes. "I have advice," she notes, raising a finger. "I don't know about how… things were in the future, but…" she points the finger forward, aimed at Adel's nose. "Never, ever take relationship advice from any of us. Ever." A bit of self depreciating humour, but she kind of does mean it.
"Deal," Adel says with a wrinkle of her nose at the advice— which is advice not to take advice on one very big topic. "I sucked at listening to advice anyway— it was part of the Varlane in me— and really, I may have been a kid, but I knew there was something not quite right with having so many mommies." Even if she loved it— most the time.
"I think you'd like my boyfriend— Jay's really awesome. I'll introduce you now, too— I'd been meaning to, but… Now I can!"
Cause the whole song can now be played— not just the drums.
"I bet it was confusing," Elaine admits, but she looks between Quinn and Adel. "Ooooh, a boyfriend. He'd better be a good guy. You're worth it. But Quinn's right. We're horrible at relationships. Me especially. We're lucky we survive the heartbreaks and troubles we've gone through." She laughs. "I'm guessing he's… y'know… from where you're from. Because romance through time never works out."
"Romance across the city barely works sometimes," Quinn replies dryly. "Anyway…" Quinn looks over her shoulder to the pie on the counter. Still a little hard, but it looks sufficiently thawed to be edible. "Pie's ready, I think." She looks back, to Elaine then too Adel. Both are afforded a wide smile. "A boyfriend is fantastic, Adel! I hope that's been good for you." She looks down at Adel, laughing. "I'm sure he's a good guy. It'll be nice t' meet more of your friends." That lingers for a moment as Quinn considers something, before continuing.
"We promise we won't rush," is a random touch back to a previous point of conversation, something she meant to comment on earlier. The silence from her afterwards isn't awkward, but it's a moment where she's not really sure where to go next. She's still working some of this out in her head.
"He's from my time, yeah," Adel admits after a moment's thought, though she seems hesitant anyway. It's so hard to know what to keep secret these days— but she seems to think this might be safe. Especially since it will come up later. "We weren't together before we came here, though. And he got stuck in the Dome after we got together, but he made it out okay."
And then she looks at the pie and smiles widely. "I'll save the stories til you meet him, though! I'd rather eat pie. It's my favorite!" She leaves out the fact that everything is her favorite— and that she's never had it. Some things just weren't available in the life she lived.
"Oh, good!" Elaine exclaims looking to Quinn. "Pie time it is." There's a sly look back to Adel. "Well, I'm sure we'll grill him when we meet him, then." There's a tiny wince at the mention of the Dome, small enough to be almost imperceptible unless you know exactly why it's there. "I'll just get the bowls." She says, moving to do just that. Pie will make everything better, after all.
The dome gets a sad look form Quinn as well, her head hanging a bit - but Adel already knows why, if she thinks about the time they spoke when she brought Jolene. But, perhaps thankfully, Quinn doesn't herself recall some other bits of that conversation.
When Elaine moves, going to get the plates, Quinn leans off the counter and towards Adel, ruffling her hair. Thank god Elaine's daughter didn't grow up as tall as her mother. Must have been Sable's influence, as if her very presence makes things shorter. "Come on, help me find a movie t' watch or somethin'. We'll have some pie, an' then… I dunno. sayin' hang out feels a little weird now."
Oh, Adel gets it— and she has her own reasons for not pressing it. They don't know what she'd been doing in the bathroom while her phone failed to connect with his— or the worry she'd had. She couldn't even tell them at the time— and she doesn't want to tell them now.
"Oh come on," she says with a shove at Quinn's shoulder. "You used to hang out with me all the time back home. Nothing at all weird with hanging out with your daughter from another time."
They don't even have to remember all the bad things she did! Or the embarrassing stories she wishes they would have forgotten back home. This is win-win for her in many ways.
"But now I can tell you things like I've never seen that movie and not seem silly."
"I don't wanna, you know, interrogate you, but there are all these little things I'm dying to ask. Like… if I was a good mother or if I was happy or if you were happy…" Elaine looks back to Quinn, making to help scoop pie out for each of them. "Good, then I guess we can show you all the 'classics'. Gosh, this must feel retro for you. And you're older than me. Kinda weird."
"Well, that makes me glad I made you watch Doctor Who, then," Quinn replies with a bit of a laugh. And, oddly, there's a bit of red on her face when Adel speaks. Her daughter was an odd sentiment once, and it hasn't gotten any better the second time.
"I won't interrogate you," Quinn remarks as she sits down with a glance back at Elaine. She'd normally flutter her eyelashes or something corny at a comment like that, but this time she refrains. "I will, however, listen t' anythin' you do want t' tell us. I've seen enough movies that I'm not expectin' too much," she notes with a wry grin. Her knowledge about time travel, all given to her by movies, TV, books, and one very bad trip to Egypt. "Of course, later, we are going up t' the studio t' play for a bit. Because I'm going t' need you in a few weeks." Some things, even with the recent revelation, don't change.
"You were the best mom," Adel says seriously, before smiling and hugging Elaine around one arm. It's the closest to a hug she will do right now, with pie and everything else. "I mean no offense to my other moms, you all were great— but you were the best, and I was happy. Am happy. Plan to stay happy." And the music, the TV…
Happy is her motto.
"I'm not going to cheat and play for you guys songs you haven't written, though! You have to make your own all over again." Just like the rest of their future.