Alex's Beginning

Chapter 15

"Martha!" Alex whined. "Will you hurry up? Even I didn't take this long to get ready." She had been looking up what exactly she was wearing for a top, and finally found the item - at a whopping 40 dollars. Geez, Alex thought. It was a blue multi-colored long sleeved pull over sweater, with ribbed hem and a cowl neck. Apparently it was from a clothing line called PattyBoutik. It was really pretty actually, especially with her hair and it was just so soft. She wasn't sure what the material was exactly, but she was nice and cozy in it. She couldn't help but snuggle up to the shirt, wanting to purr like a cat.

She couldn't help but love her outfit, because with that lovely sweater she had some dark wash jeans on and some gray pointed toe wedge heels with side buckles. She loved heels, and always liked wedged heels better since they were surprisingly more comfortable than stilettos - good lord, while those were nice and sexy, those would kill your feet in no time. She had some beautiful sterling silver twisted spiral earrings with diamond cut that she found and just instantly fell in love with. Her makeup was perfect. She made sure that her eye shadow wasn't too dark, considering the fact that her ice eyes didn't need much help at popping out. She had a nice light pink dusting across the apples of her cheeks, and with lady bug red as her lipstick color, everything was pulled together to make her outfit beautiful.

If she could say so herself, she was pretty damn sexy. It made her feel good, confident in her looks. She didn't dress up and put on makeup for a guy. Nah, she did it for herself - to make herself feel beautiful.

She had come over a few hours ago, and Martha and she had been talking the whole time. The doctor-in-training couldn't quite get her mind wrapped around what was going on. So, they had talked for a long time about all sorts of things. Alex tried to explain it the best she could, trying to remember what the Doctor had said to her and put it into words that would make sense. Martha seemed to understand, and Alex was grateful. After that, they just talked, they got to know each other again and it turned out that they had a lot in common. They were quickly becoming fast friends, and that made Alex feel better. She needed at least one friend in this weird world that apparently was now to be her own.

"I'm almost done." Martha laughed as she put the finishing touches on her mascara. They had the radio on in the background - tuned into some station talking about the events at the hospital - but neither of them was really listening.

"You said that like an hour ago!" Alex complained, as she fell onto her friend's bed and planted her face into the nice blankets. "This is really soft." She said, her voice muffled, before she rolled over and spread herself out on the bed, looking over at the woman upside down. She giggled. "You look really weird upside down." She saw Martha roll her eyes, but she was smiling. Or was she? Was she frowning? Alex couldn't tell, it was hard to decide from this angle. "If you're not done in the next..." She stalled and looked over to see when they should leave to get the Leo's party in time. "If you're not done in the next half an hour, then I'm going off without you."

"But then you'll get lost!" Martha protested.

"And it will be your fault." Alex replied calmly. "If get end up getting lost, and then being kidnapped and murdered - you will have no one to blame but yourself." Alex grinned and Martha just laughed.

"Fine, fine, I'm doing my best."

-x-

Martha was being truthful, and after another ten minutes or so she was finally done and they were able to go off and to the bar. A banner hung across the entrance, Happy Birthday Leo! Alex smiled, but paused when she saw Martha had a look on her face that was similar to a person going off into battle. Alex looked back at the door and sighed. "It's going to be bad, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Martha nodded her head. "Dad's bringing along his girlfriend and Mum's not too happy about that."

"Oh boy..." Martha didn't even need to say all that much, and it was already sounding like a bad idea. "This is going to be rough." Martha and Alex held onto each other for support, and glanced at the other before taking a deep breath and walking into the bar.

-x-

It took no less than a couple of hours before Annalise went storming out of the bar, having enough of Francine's attitude. "I am not staying in there to be insulted!" The blonde woman growled. Clive was rushing after her, doing everything he could to fix the problem.

"She didn't mean it, sweetheart." Clive tried to soothe. "She just said you look healthy."

Not that Francine was being much help, she wasn't about to stand there and have her ex-husband try and soothe things over. "No, I did not. I said orange." Alex had exited the bar with the three Jones children and was just watching with exasperation. Did they have to this today of all days? It was Leo's birthday! Could they not put aside their differences at least for a few hours? 21st birthday was a big day that couldn't come around again, and they really needed to act like adults.

"Clive, that woman is disrespecting me. She's never liked me." Or not, Alex thought with a roll of her eyes, you could continue to act like children.

"Oh, I can't possibly imagine why, after you stole my husband!" Francine bit back. Yep, Alex shook her head. Children, that's what the three of them were. They were children. It was ridiculous.

She turned to Leo - who she had been having a great conversation with when the agreement happened. He had been nice, trying to help her understand football. "I am so sorry about this, Leo. They really should know better." She patted his shoulder sympathetically. He sort of just sighed.

"Thanks Alex." At least one person cared that it was his birthday.

Back with the three toddlers, Annalise was quick to defend herself. "I was seduced. I'm entirely innocent! Tell her, Clive!" Yes, because that's supposed to make everything better, isn't it? While she wasn't necessarily on Francine's side - she never liked to fight with anyone. She certainly didn't like Annalise - that lady just gave a bad name to all women.

Francine apparently wasn't done with the list of things that she didn't approve of. "And then she has to go at Martha and Alex, practically accused them of making the whole thing up."

Alex jumped in at the chance to try and bring things back to what was important - Leo's birthday. "Mrs. Jones! It's okay! See," she gestured to the two of them. "We're fine with it, it doesn't matter, does it, Martha?" She turned to look at her friend. "It's okay, right? We're fine with it."

Martha caught on quickly. "Exactly Mum. We don't mind. Just leave it."

With horrible luck, none of them seemed to hear the young women. "Oh. 'I've been to the moon'. As if." Alex leaned her head back and looked towards the sky, silently praying for a deity to come and help her out with this. She was about ready to just give up. "They were drugged. It said so on the news."

Francine never seemed to run out of verbal ammo. There was a part of Alex that swore she never wanted to get on Francine's bad side. It seemed like you could never win against her. "Since when did you watch the news? You can't handle Quiz Mania."

"Annalise started it. She did. I heard her." Alex slowly looked over to Tish, and glared at the girl. That was not helping anyone.

Leo was on her side, thankfully. "Tish, don't make it worse."

Even Tish wouldn't back down - seems like it runs in the family, Alex thought with some despair. "You're talking, Leo. What did she buy you, soap? A seventy-five pence soap?"

Alex put her foot down before it could get too far. "Enough of that, both of you, okay!" She glared at the two of them. "We've already got them fighting," she threw out a hand towards the bickering so-called adults. "That's bad enough. We really don't need you two fighting as well!"

Alex wasn't entirely sure what happened. All she knew was that the group broke off after a few more insults were thrown. Annalise went first, and Clive was quick to rush after her - like a puppy, and it was kind of sad, she had to admit. Leo went after his dad. With one final insult towards her ex-husband, Francine went off in a different direction. Tish had to go after her.