Maria passes out after Isobel manages to wring a fourth orgasm out of her telling Isobel in a pleasure slurred voice, “I think I love you.”
Isobel knows that it’s just the alcohol and all the endorphins flooding through her entire nervous system, but it strikes a chord deep inside of Isobel.
She slips back on her underwear, and wraps one of the sheets around herself as Maria makes herself comfortable beneath Isobel’s leather trench coat.
Isobel just sits down on a nearby boulder, and looks up at the sky and tries to tell herself that it would be an extremely bad idea to get involved with Maria DeLuca, to put someone else in the middle of all of this drama.
At the very moment, Michael was being kept in stasis inside of his pod and his husband is due home any day now, and Isobel doesn't know how she's going to explain to him what happened. And then there was Max and his Liz-Shaped weakness.
It was better if she wrote off tonight and they both pretended that it never happened, after all, Maria was adamant that she didn't like Isobel, she would more than likely jump at the chance to put this whole thing behind them.
Isobel looks back down to where Maria is asleep, the moonlight and the stars practically illuminating her in the darkness.
As Isobel stares, Maria moves, getting more comfortable, and letting out a light snore, which just shows Isobel how deeply asleep she is.
Isobel stares at her and thinks that maybe, she doesn’t want to put it all behind her.
Isobel doesn’t really know how much time passes as she stares, but the sun is just beginning to rise when her phone starts to ring, her specialized ringtone for Max. Isobel looks around and finds her dress several feet away, the phone ringing from the pocket.
She pulls the sheet closer around her and walks over to the phone, picking it up just before it goes to voicemail.
“Hey,” Max says. “Liz and I are heading back to New Mexico now, but I couldn’t find you?”
Isobel turns around in a circle and very nearly laughs when she spots the bar within easy walking distance.
“I’m fine. We got lost and decided to wait until the morning to find our way back.”
Max’s silence speaks volumes. Isobel looks to Maria, who had moved when the phone rang, but is still sleeping.
“You’re gonna be okay heading back to Roswell with Maria?”
Isobel rolls her eyes. “I’m sure we can survive the trip, don’t worry. Just go check on Michael.”
Max tells her that he will, and hangs the phone up.
Isobel picks her dress up from the floor and walks back over to the boulder, spotting her boots and picking them up on the way.
The sunlight finally hits Maria’s face, and she wrinkles her nose. Isobel watches her eyes flutter open and then shut tight as she starts to groan in pain as the light probably makes her headache worse.
“Good morning,” Isobel says, injecting as much fake enthusiasm as she can into the words.
She sees Maria freeze, and Isobel just starts to slip on her dress as she seems to take stock of herself, and realize that she’s not actually wearing any clothes.
Maria’s eyes open again and she looks over to where Isobel is just sliding the straps of her dress up her shoulders.
“Fuck,” she says and lets herself fall back on the ground, covering her face with her hands.
Isobel has to agree, but instead she just sits on the boulder and starts to pull on her boots.
“Max called and said that they’re already heading to Roswell so I guess you’re stuck with me for a few more hours more.”
Maria sits up at that, holding Isobel’s coat to her chest as she glares at Isobel. “You didn’t tell them that we-”
Isobel scoffs rolling her eyes. “Of course not.”
Maria stares at her unblinkingly for a moment and then nods her head.
“Good, since this is never happening again, we don’t really have to tell anyone about it.”
“Relax,” Isobel says as she gets to her feet. “I don’t want anyone to know about this little lapse in judgement either.”
Maria flinches back at that and then starts to get up, gathering her shirt and pants and the sheet up around her.
“We should find the truck as soon as possible then,” she says as she stands, and doesn’t look at Isobel.
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Isobel says and points behind Maria’s shoulder.
Maria turns around and then makes a rude noise with her mouth, before she pulls the sheet around her tighter and starts stalking towards the truck.
-
The ride to Roswell is quiet, awkward and uncomfortable.
Isobel tries to speak only once, and Maria just turns on the radio loudly effectively cutting her off.
Isobel just leans back in her seat and looks out of the window, staring at the clouds and doesn’t realize that she’s fallen asleep until Maria rudely wakes her up by braking the truck too hard in front of her house.
Isobel’s hand slams on the dashboard to stop herself from slamming into it head first, and she turns towards Maria and glares at her.
Maria just smiles caustically, “Home sweet home. Can you please hurry up? I have a million things to do before opening the bar tonight.”
She turns back towards the windshield, and Isobel sees a dark red mark high up on her neck, and she hadn’t realized that she had left any marks. She wonders if Maria left any marks on her, or if the fading memory of the night will be the only thing she ever have to remember it by.
Isobel wants to ask her if she really meant it, that it was never going to happen again, but that’s opening up a can of worms that Isobel isn’t prepared to deal with at the moment, at least while Michael is still stuck in stasis.
Isobel just shakes her head, trying to get her thoughts in order, and then gets out of the truck, slamming the door behind her.
Maria presses hard on the gas before Isobel even let go of the door, and she flinches back as the truck roars loudly as she pushes it to the limit immediately.
Isobel stares until the truck disappears from view, and only then does she walk towards the door.
As soon as she steps down with her left foot, she feels something too smooth to be a rock pressing against the bottom of her foot.
She walks over to the steps leading up to the balcony and then drops down on top of them and pulls her boot off, turning it upside down.
A necklace falls into her hands, one that she remembers being around Maria’s neck, that she had pulled off and thrown somewhere when the loops had tightened too tightly around her neck when they were right in the middle of it.
Isobel brushes her thumb over the resin surface of the pendant, and bites down on her lip.
Well then, it looks like she has a reason to go see Maria much sooner than she was expecting.
Once the guard leaves after banging a hand on the glass door and smirking, like he’d been trying to scare her, she looks around and finds the two security cameras inside of the room quickly disabling them with a trick Michael taught her the last time they had had to deal with the Fleet Soldiers. She pushes the bed from one corner of the room to the other, and stands up on it, reaching up with her hands and hitting the metal, which sounds pretty solid until she gets to about the middle of the space, and then it sounds hollow. The vents, just like Alex had said.
She closes her eyes, pressing her hands hard against the metal above her head and she concentrates, willing it to flow like water, leaving nothing behind.
She feels the metal, cool and with an almost jelly like consistency, covering her hands, and when she opens her eyes and looks above her, there is a hole in the roof the perfect space for Isobel to fit through.
Isobel reaches up, straining as far as she can go, and pulls herself into the small space.
Her feet have just cleared the space when she hears the door to her cell opening and a voice cursing.
“Where is the princess?” someone asks, but Isobel doesn’t wait.
She looks down at the faded drawing in the palm of her hand and squinting in the dark space, and moves forward.
There is a loud sound like someone is attempting to crawl after her, but Isobel hasn’t spent five years on the run for nothing.
She turns, and finds the head and torso of one of the guards as he tries to go after her, not pointing his phaser at her since she’s supposed to be taken alive and unharmed no matter what.
Isobel pulls off the bracelet from around her wrist, and sets it down on the floor in front of her before she closes her eyes again and concentrates on the molecular structure of the gold bracelet and then she expands it.
She opens her eyes again and sees the way the bracelet has turned into a sort of fence.
It might not hold up too long, but it will be a nuisance, and Isobel only needs a few minutes anyway.
She turns back around and follows the path marked on her hand.
She drops down into an empty hall, and barely looks around before she’s running down the corridor, taking the turn too fast, and stumbling a few steps before she keeps going.
The escape pods are where they always are in these Fleet Cruisers, which is something that they should change if they want the Renegade Troops to stop escaping through their fingers when the Renegades have a former Fleet Officer in their group spilling all of the secrets.
Isobel skids to a stop right in front of the pods and is about to input the code that Alex had practically forced her to memorize when there is a phaser blast blowing apart the circuitry of the keypad and very nearly taking Isobel’s hand with it.
She whirls around, hands lifting up immediately, and she’s pushing backwards before she even sees who it was that shot at her, pinning the person to the wall.
It takes her two seconds to notice that it’s Jenna, and she lets go.
Jenna inhales sharply as the pressure to her lungs disappears, and slides down the wall, looking at Isobel like she can’t believe that she’s actually here to help her.
“They have a tracker in that one,” Jenna gasps out. “Take the third one down.”
Isobel licks her lips, and she wants to cross the space between them and fall to her knees in front of Jenna and hold her close, because she misses her, and this sucks. Sucks that in this war being raged between a megalomaniac with the Elite on his side and the rest of the galaxy, they’re on opposite sides.
She takes a staggering step towards her, and there is the sound of running footsteps too close for either of their liking.
Jenna pushes herself to her feet, and gives Isobel a look that says so many things and yet not enough. Isobel wishes that when Alex decided to go AWOL, he had dragged Jenna with him.
“Go,” Jenna says. “I’ll distract them.”
Isobel nods her head once and turns to head towards the escape pod that Jenna had said to take, when there are fingers wrapping around her wrist and tugging her, and Isobel turns back immediately, hand coming up to cup Jenna’s face as she leans up and presses a hard kiss on Isobel’s mouth, fingers tightening painfully around Isobel’s wrist.
“Be careful,” she whispers harshly as she pulls back.
Isobel nods her head, “You too.”
Jenna just lets her go, pushing her towards the pod and turns and runs down the hall, reaching just in time to cut the others from coming her way.
Isobel inputs the code into the keypad and is inside of the pod before someone can look down the hall for her.
She lets the door close behind her, and she doesn’t strap herself down into her seat, even as the escape pod starts preparing to eject. She pushes her hands on either side of the small space she’s in and shuts her eyes tightly and pulls her bottom lip into her mouth, where she can still feel Jenna’s mouth against hers.
She feels the pod shoot out of the Fleet Cruiser, the coordinates she needs to go to already set into the navigational system thanks to another trick she learned from Michael.
She just stays sitting down on the floor, and tries to keep her breaths even, and hopes that this will all be over soon.
Maria had been waiting for about three hours when Liz finally showed up, right on time.
She climbs up to where Maria is perched and she's holding two small cups of ice cream from the diner.
"I brought some pick me ups," she says, matching Rosa's intonation when she's offering something a little more adult than ice cream.
Maria takes the cup with her name on it and smiles as wide as she can when she sees that it's her favorite.
Liz sits down beside her and exhales slowly. "I'm sorry that you're not going to be able to go to prom."
Maria just shrugs and starts to poke her spoon around in the ice cream, melting it faster than it's supposed to, "I'm not. I'm glad that I have a ready made excuse not to go. I got banned for protesting, sounds way better than I couldn't find a date."
"I would've gone with you," Liz says immediately, and while Maria appreciates the sentiment, going to prom with Liz would've been a special kind of torture.
"What about Kyle?" She asks and turns to Liz when she feels a spike of disgruntlement coming from Liz.
She raises an eyebrow and Liz sighs. "We broke up. Or well, I broke up with him."
Maria lifts both eyebrows in surprise.
"I guess I just," Liz shakes her head and sighs, looking out at the bright blue sky. "We're graduating soon, and I'm leaving in a couple of weeks, and while, I do like Kyle, I just feel like I'm moving forward and he's stuck being the same person he was when we started high school, and I already know that we're not going to last through the summer, so why not just cut the tie now."
Maria inclines her head because she does have a point, and turns back to face forward, lifting a spoonful of ice cream to her mouth.
"And also," Liz continues, something nervous but determined in her voice. "There are certain people that I kind of don't feel like missing, and if I'm with Kyle, there is no way to know for sure if I'll really miss them like that you know?"
Maria turns to Liz, lowering her spoon. She feels the sticky wetness of the ice cream on her cheek but she ignores it to smirk knowingly.
"You're talking about Max Evans?"
"No," Liz protests immediately turning to Maria. "Why does everyone assume that? When I told Rosa she told me the same thing."
Maria just laughs. "It's cause he's into you. He's been into you forever. I'm sure if he knew that you were on the market he'd be leaving you secret notes and serenading you with the twenty dollars per song Mexican band that busks in front of the diner."
"Well," Liz says sounding a little grumpy. "Maybe I'm not planning to be on the market for too long."
Maria furrows her brow, "What do you mean?"
Liz inhales deeply and just shakes her head as she looks at Maria, before she's leaning forward, and Maria thinks for a moment that she's going to wipe the ice cream from her cheek, but Liz just keeps leaning in closer, until she's all Maria can see, and then Maria's eyes flutter close as Liz presses a soft, ice cream cold kiss, across her mouth.
Maria inhales sharply, as Liz presses their lips together and then pulls away.
Her eyes flutter open, and Liz is looking right at her.
"So, not Max," she says a little breathlessly.
Liz just shakes her head.
Maria stares at her for a long moment and then she feels a smile spreading across her lips.
Liz's answering smile is huge and bright and her eyes are shining happily when Maria tugs her back in, forgetting all about the ice cream, and kisses her again.
day sixteen: "he was unconscious when I found him."
*
"He was unconscious when I found him!" Maria says as soon as Jenna walks into the bar, while she kicks the bat that was on the floor to the side.
Jenna gives her a highly skeptical look, and Maria gives her an offended one back.
"I grabbed it because I heard a noise, but once I got out here all I found was him."
Jenna looks at the guy lying face down on the floor.
"And you called me instead of 911," Jenna states, not really asking, but wanting confirmation.
Maria gives her an incredulous look, "If I had called 911 we'd be having this conversation with me behind bars."
Jenna hates to admit that she has a point, but she does. Especially if the person to show up wasn't the Sheriff, those rookies fighting for Max's vacant spot wouldn't have thought twice about arresting Maria.
"And," Maria continues. "I think this is related to our little friends from outer space."
Jenna turns to her with a furrowed brow, and Maria tugs out a small metal object from the pocket of her sweater.
As they stare at it, the device glows a soft blue, and Maria makes a low grunting sound before she speaks again, the words falling out of her mouth like they're being forced out.
"And I feel safer around you."
She drops the object on the ground, and Jenna just raises an eyebrow, but decides to ignore the comment since Maria won't even look at her in the eye and leans down to pick it up.
"If you think it's related to our friends, then why didn't you call Alex?"
"I did," Maria says after a long second. "He didn't answer the phone."
"It is seven in the morning on a Saturday," Jenna says as she gets back to her feet, the small metal object nestled in the palm of her hand.
"Then why did you answer?" Maria asks brow furrowing.
Jenna is about to deflect the question when the metal object glows blue in her hands, and she feels the urge to just tell the truth, and she does, almost like she can't help it.
"I always answer when you call," she says and then stuffs the object into the pocket of her jacket.
Maria is silent for a long moment, but then she ignores Jenna's comment, just like Jenna ignored hers.
"Okay, so maybe no one should touch that," she says shortly. "Do you have any rope?"
"Kinky," Maria says, raising an eyebrow at her.
Jenna tries not to fluster. It's much easier to control it when they're around other people, but when they're alone like this, Maria disarms her completely.
"I meant to tie him up until we can figure out if he's a bad guy, a good guy, or a really bad guy."
Maria just nods her head and turns towards the bar, heading for the back room.
"And by the way," Jenna says almost as an afterthought, turning back to the unconscious body on the floor. "I have padded cuffs for that."
She hears Maria bump into the edge of the bar, jostling a stool and has to bite down on her lip to stop the smile from spreading across her face.
day fifteen: "i hope what i've said hasn't hurt you too much."
*
Maria walks into the bar, stuffing her keys back into her pocket, and tries to remember that she's cutting back on drinking and shouldn't get drunk at eleven in the morning just because it's been a shitty four hours.
"I hope that what I said didn't hurt you too much," Isobel's voice comes from behind the bar, as she steps out of the shadows, and Maria jumps not expecting her to be there.
She was also not expecting an apology or what passes for an apology in Isobel speak.
Maria just inhales deeply and turns to Isobel.
She looks a little nervous, which is unusual, but then again it's not like everyday Isobel would be fighting back the effects of a truth serum.
“You didn’t say anything that I didn’t already know,” Maria says shrugging it off.
She really doesn't want to talk about it.
"How about this," Isobel starts walking closer to Maria. "I hated every second that you were dating Michael."
Maria blows out a breath, "Yeah, you already said because he was lying-"
"That's not the only reason why," Isobel says, and Maria stops speaking and tilts her head at Isobel, eyes narrowing slightly.
Isobel swallows hard and looks around the entire bar, and then back to Maria.
"I hated it, because you were with him, and not with me."
Maria's mouth snaps close, and her eyes widen slightly and she tries to figure out how the hell she missed this.
"Seeing you kiss him was single handedly one of the worst things that has ever happened to me, and I was in a relationship with a psychotic alien who was mind controlling me."
Maria blinks at that, not knowing what to say, but it doesn't matter since Isobel seems to have no problems just blurting out whatever thoughts are popping into her head at the moment.
"I even went to Alex for advice on how to deal with my feelings for you, okay? Alex, Mister What the Hell is an Actual Positive Emotion, Is That Straight People Propaganda? Him."
Maria just blinks at her.
"For advice," she stresses.
Maria licks her lips, "What did he say to do?"
"Nothing, he just gave me a bottle of vodka, and we now have a standard Saturday Night Date, every two weeks where we just get drunk and stop each other from sending too many incriminating text messages."
That would explain the messages from an unknown number that she could never understand.
"But that's not the point," Isobel continues. "The point is that I'm in love with you."
Maria freezes again, lips parted, eyes going wider. How the hell did she miss this?
"I have been for a really long time, but I convinced myself that I just didn't know how to have female friends."
Maria really doesn't know what to say to that either.
"But then I realized that I don't feel like this for anyone else, and that friends don't try to sabotage their friend's dates with their brother."
"That was yo-" Maria starts and then stops herself. She had thought that it was just bad luck, and the universe telling her that the time wasn't right for her and Michael, but of course it was just deus ex Isobel.
"I'm sorry," Isobel says, an actual apology. "I couldn't help myself. But I am sorry. And I'm sorry now. You probably have no interest in hearing this, but I just had to tell you that even though I hated every second of it, Michael is such a fucking idiot for ever letting you go. You are the best thing that will ever happen to him."
Maria just exhales softly, and crosses the small space between them and places her hands on Isobel's arms.
Isobel stops talking, stops breathing, and just stares at Maria with wide eyes.
"You don't have to be sorry about that," she says. "You can't help how you feel."
"Right," Isobel says, brow furrowing. "And how do you feel?"
Maria stares at Isobel for a moment before she lifts herself up on her toes and leans in, pressing a kiss to Isobel's cheek.
She hears Isobel inhale sharply and shudder.
Maria smiles as she drops back down, "How about you ask me again tomorrow, after this wears off, and after you tell me again, deal?"
Isobel just smiles at her, wide and bright and real and so surprising that it takes Maria's breath away.
A sharp loud sound startles Maria awake, almost making her fall off the edge of the bed, but she manages to pull herself to safety, fingers snagging along the cold metal of the headboard and holding on tight.
She lies her head back on the pillow, exhaling roughly and eyes refusing to open as she tries to convince the rest of her body to go back to sleep.
There is a second where Maria floats in the silence, trying to catch the vestiges of sleep, and then she remembers that she doesn’t have a metal headboard, but a wooden one.
Maria sits up in the bed, taking the sheets with her to keep herself covered up and looks around the room she’s in wildly, to see if she can find a clue as to where she is.
She remembers getting into her truck and driving until she’d spotted a bar, several miles out of town, but everything after that is kind of a blur, the kind that tells her that she needs to stop trying to drink herself unconscious every time that she catches a glimpse of Michael with Alex.
Before she can work herself up too much about it or go through the worst case scenarios in her head, there is a door opening, and the amount of steam that pours out tells Maria that it’s the bathroom.
Jenna Cameron, of all people, walks out of the bathroom, towel drying her hair, only wearing a robe that is loosely cinched at her waist and falling off one of her shoulders.
Maria gets the vivid image of pressing kisses right against that shoulder and she shakes her head a little.
“Morning,” Jenna says, when she sees that she’s awake. “And sorry for the rude awakening. I woke up earlier than the alarm and forgot to turn it off since I don’t usually have company over this early in the morning.”
Maria pulls her the sheets closer around her and casts her gaze around the room, searching for her clothes.
“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Maria starts, and Jenna makes a rude noise at the back of her throat.
“Not an inconvenience,” she says. “I owe you breakfast, but I’m running a little late since I wasn’t supposed to be working today, but got called in. So raincheck?”
Maria just turns back to her tilting her head to the side, and Jenna just rolls her eyes little.
“This isn’t my first rodeo, if you want to pretend it never happened, I can do that.”
She sits on the edge of the bed, right next to Maria, and the robe falls even lower on her shoulder, and Maria just stares at her feeling a little bit out of her depth.
She can’t read Jenna as easily as she can read the others, which is a relief when she’s constantly bombarded by the impressions of everyone else’s thoughts and feelings.
“But,” Jenna continues. “I had a great time, and I would love to do it again when we’re both a lot more sober. Maybe have dinner or something beforehand.”
Maria licks her lips and stares at Jenna, “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Jenna tilts her head. “Something like that.”
“My entire life is a mess right now,” Maria says, like she needs to actually tell Jenna, when she probably knows the whole story already.
“Whose life isn’t a mess?” Jenna asks, raising an eyebrow.
“And besides,” she continues and moves fast, hands pressing on either side of Maria’s face before she moves in close, so close that Maria’s breath hitches as her eyes drop to Jenna’s mouth. “I like your mess.”
She kisses Maria then, a soft quick thing that sends sparks shooting off in her brain, and a tingle down the back of her neck.
Jenna pulls away slowly, and gives her a soft smile. “You can stay as long as you want. There’s plenty of food in the kitchen, and I have an automatic lock on the door so you don’t have to worry about locking up after yourself.”
Maria exhales softly, just staring at Jenna for a long moment, wondering how she’d known that what Maria needed was to be somewhere where she felt safe but alone, and she just hadn’t found a place where she could just be, and let herself actually feel her emotions be they good or bad, without being interrupted by at least two different people every day.
Maria loves her friends, but sometimes she misses the solitude.
“Thank you,” she says, finally, and Jenna nods her head, moving to get off the bed.
Maria catches her hand and tugs her back down, ignoring the questioning look on Jenna’s face to cup her cheeks in her hands and press a kiss to her mouth.
Jenna pulls away with a smile, biting down on her bottom lip, and Maria thinks that maybe she could get used to this.
Liz wakes up because it smells like something is burning.
She drags her head out from beneath the covers and squints as the bright sunlight blinds her momentarily.
She blinks and looks around the room, and recognizes the wallpaper from her childhood bedroom.
She lets her head fall back into the pillows and she snuggles in, hiding a smile in fabric.
She had thought that asking Isobel to spend the holidays at Roswell was going to be the thing that broke their relationship, but she was so glad that it hadn't.
She frowns then and lifts her head up again, but Isobel isn't hiding on the other side of the small bed.
She sits up in bed and looks around the small room, but she's nowhere to be found.
Liz looks out the open bedroom door, and sizzle and then a familiar sounding hiss.
She wonders what on earth Isobel could be doing when she hears her dad's gentle chuckling and then his voice, too low for her to hear but fond.
Liz slips out of bed and grabs the robe she'd toss over her desk chair and pulls it on as she walks out of the door and down the hall.
She finds Isobel and her dad in the small kitchen.
Liz leans against the entrance, and just watches them, waiting for them to realize that she's there.
"Now wait for the bubbles to appear," Arturo is saying.
"That's what I waited for the first time and-"
"Paciencia mi'ja," Arturo says, just slightly admonishing. "No one ever gets it right the first time."
Liz watches as Isobel just inhales deeply and nods her head, picking up the spatula again.
Isobel looks away from the pan to her dad, who nods his head impercitively and then looks back at the pan and moves forward to flip it over.
"Genial," he says with a smile and pats her on the shoulder, before turning and spotting Liz.
He smiles warmly at her.
"Now," he tells Isobel as he makes his way out of the kitchen. "I'm going to finish getting ready. You just keep doing that until the batter is done."
Isobel turns as he goes, mouth open like she's going to protest and then she sees Liz and her mouth snaps shut as she turns back to the pancakes.
Her dad pats her on the shoulder as he passes her, and Liz waits until she hears his door closing before she pushes away from her position and walks over to where Isobel is pouring more batter into the pan.
"You're making breakfast," Liz says letting her shock color her tone.
Isobel just sighs, and just stares at the pancake even harder.
"I mean," Liz says leaning against the counter. "I thought that the kitchen in your apartment was only there for show."
Isobel glares out of the corner of her eye, but still doesn't say anything.
"And to think that I believe you every time I tell you it's your turn to cook and you say you burn water-"
"They're your favorite, okay?" Isobel snaps, turning towards Liz and pouting. "I wanted to learn how to make them because they are your favorite."
Liz's amused face, goes softer and she moves forward, backing Isobel into the other side of the counter, making her slide down a little before Liz goes up on her tiptoes, tipping her chin backwards as Isobel leans down to meet her in a soft kiss.
"Thank you," she whispers softly, right against Isobel's mouth.
Isobel makes a low noise, and moves, hands coming up to cradle Liz's face as she tugs her in closer and kisses her harder, deeper.
Liz pushes into the kiss, wrapping her arms around Isobel's waist.
Liz forgets that they're not back home, until the acrid smell of smoke gets to her nose and her dad says loudly from his room.
"Se están quemando otra vez!"
Isobel pushes her back, gently, disengaging their mouths and turning back to the now burnt pancake.
Liz sighs as Isobel glares at her, resigned to no more morning kisses and goes to serve herself a cup of coffee.
Jenna walks into the room, yawning, her phone pressed to her ear.
"Listen, baby," she says. "We all understand why you don't want to move. Just give your dad some slack okay? You've got Guerin DNA, obviously he's going to be dramatic and go overboard in the name of protecting you."
Liz just sits on the bed, back against the headboard, and waits for Jenna to recognize the glasses she's got perched on the edge of her nose.
She hangs up the phone after promising Cosima that she will call Alex in the morning and talk to him about giving her a reasonable curfew now that she's not grounded.
"Out of all the futures I imagined, raising a child with Alex Manes was definitely not one of them."
"You love them," Liz says with confidence.
Jenna just rolls her eyes and tosses her phone on the bed before her gaze focuses on Liz and she just makes a face when she notices the glasses.
"I thought I threw those away," she says and throws herself down on the bed next to Liz.
"Oh come on," Liz says sliding the glasses down her nose and looking at Jenna over the top. "I think they're cute."
Jenna throws her arm over her eyes dramatically. "You're not the one who has to wear them."
Liz just rolls her eyes, and moves to climb on top of Jenna, swinging her leg over and settling down on her thighs.
Jenna leans up on her elbows and closes her eyes when Liz takes the glasses off her face and slides them onto hers.
Liz smiles and cups her cheeks in her hands and waits until Jenna opens her eyes once again to look at her before she leans down.
"I like them," she says, and Jenna makes a face at her.
"They make me look old," she says grumpily.
"Forty is not old," Liz replies and Jenna just rolls her eyes.
"That's not what I meant."
Liz just studies Jenna's face for a long moment, before she settles her hands on either side of Jenna's head and leans down.
"It's okay to miss them, you know? I miss them all of the time. But I like to think that they would've wanted us to go on with our lives."
She leans down even closer and presses their foreheads together. "Besides, life's not so bad here with you."
Jenna just hums noncommitally, tipping her head backwards, and brushing their noses together.
"Even if you are getting old," Liz teases, leaning back out of kissing range.
Jenna makes an offended noise and then moves, turning them around in one smooth move and pressing Liz back down on the bed.
"I'll show you who's old," she says, voice going all growly.
Liz just smiles as Jenna leans down and presses their lips together.
