Heaven's Defense
by Hth

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Although usually I dislike content warnings, I feel like this story 
has the potential to require its readers to take sides on a fairly charged emotional 
issue.  Readers who don't want to be in that position, psychologically, shouldn't 
have to, so I've added a specific warning at the bottom of the fic.  The more 
emotionally involved you tend to get with the things you read, the more I'd encourage 
you to read the spoiler warning, just to give yourself time to be ready for it when 
it crops up in the story.  And that's all I have to say about that.


	Francesca came to the back door of the boutique about fifteen minutes after
close. She looked like a hooker, her acid-washed jeans more holes than denim,
and she had a pint of amaretto and a fifth of vodka, and she looked annoyed when Irene 
told her she wasn't ready to leave yet. Obviously the thrill of knowing someone who 
worked every day with Chanel and Christian Dior clothing - and she had appeared to 
find it thrilling at first, even if Irene just worked folding and stocking, nothing 
that you could really even pretend to parlay into high fashion - was wearing thin. 
Irene just turned away, calmly ignoring her as she finished folding silk blouses for 
the front table.
	It wasn't that she didn't love Francesca. It was just that, sometimes, it was
hard for Irene not to say what was on her mind. She didn't really have that
problem with her parents or teachers or co-workers or parish priest, but there
was something so real and urgent about Frannie, the same something Ray had had
before her, that made it feel good to...to say. Didn't matter what. Just to speak.
	But Irene kept up a cautious silence, harmonizing with her friend's prattle
about who might be working the doors at which clubs tonight and where they might be 
able to get in. Because it didn't matter whether or not she loved Frannie Vecchio; 
the impulse right now was to say *Why are you such a bimbo, Frannie? Why don't you 
even see what's happening under your nose?*
	Mean. Unnecessary. Francesca was who she was.
	Not even true. Francesca could see just as well as Irene could. And sometimes, 
Irene could catch the vague brush of understanding, a ghostly sense of why Frannie 
was the way she was, why her idea of coping was waiting for two hours in the maze 
of velvet ropes on the off-chance that they'd be allowed into a club that was 
unscrupulous enough to let teenaged girls drink and get hit on by their cut-rate yuppie 
clientele, but not unscrupulous enough to be mobbed up, because then they'd only get 
a pitying look from the bouncer, along with a, "Miss Zuko, you oughta just go on home, 
you get it? I can't let you in places like this."
	So Irene kept up her protective silence, just like at home, while Frannie
paced aimlessly around the store, absently stroking the more richly-textured
merchandise and talking and talking, flipping her feathered hair and pouting at
Irene's slow pace, flashing white thigh and breathing out the candy-smell of
amaretto.
	Barbie dolls and birthday parties that they didn't dare invite each other to
all seemed like a long, long time ago. Seventh-grade health class where she'd let 
Frannie cheat off her tests, and freshman year when they'd smoked together in the 
girls' room, pretending to like the taste, easy, like all deceits had seemed to become 
after pretending for years that they didn't like each other. 
	Every Monday night during their senior yyear, when Irene came over to tutor
Francesca in algebra II, experiencing a strange sense of disorientation every time 
she walked up and rang the front doorbell instead of sneaking in through a window, 
profoundly uncomfortable both with Ray's glaring absence from the house and with the 
permanently pissed-off mood that Mr. Vecchio seemed to be in since he graduated and 
went away to college, but so exquisitely, ecstatically *comfortable* with sitting 
on Francesca's bed scratching out formulas and theorems while they watched MASH and 
Cagney & Lacey, eating the pie Mrs. Vecchio brought up to them, kissing the stain 
of blackberries off of Frannie's mouth.
	Years of Frannie, and the thing that Irene didn't like to face but couldn't
seem to escape from lately was that even this, even this sweet and occasionally
tortured, frustrating and intimate friendship, in the end, succumbed to the laws of 
gravity and was sucked down into the same quagmire that consumed everything sooner 
or later: blood, alcohol, and endings.

	Irene had that look on her face again, that Godfather look. Like she ruled
the world from some distant place, and all of life's problems were hers to fix,
or at least think about. And think and think and think about. Too bad she was the 
girl and Frankie was the boy; Irene was more than smart enough to rule the world, 
or at least the neighborhood.
	Frannie wasn't smart, not on the same level, not in the same ways, but
sometimes it seemed like being smart made it harder for Irene to muddle through
life, not easier. Only Frannie could come up with crazy ideas like that, like
Irene Zuko being some kind of lady Don, of the way she could get that Godfather
look and then get her way, like Irene always got her way, and how awesome it would 
be if someone like Irene ran things, instead of dickheads like her brother Frank. 
	Dumb idea, sure. Totally impossible, for hundreds, maybe millions of reasons. 
But it was a happy thought, and sometimes Francesca just wanted to tie her friend 
down and cram happy thoughts down her throat.  Irene didn't seem to believe in much, 
even though she knew basically everything. Francesca couldn't really see how that 
could be a good thing. 
	Maybe she was too dumb to get it, but on the other hand, maybe she didn't
really *want* it, whatever it was that Irene got.
	It was just like with Ray. Francesca was on the phone with him every weekend,
saying, Ray, come on, come back and see him, you don't have to stay, just drop by. 
And Ray could reel off reason after reason that he had to be angry at Pop, ways that 
he'd let the family down, been a rotten father and deserved a brand of love and devotion 
every bit as flawed and faulty as the kind he'd given his wife and all three of his 
kids and everyone else he'd ever known. 
	Reasonable things, right things, and the words to argue with him never came; 
Francesca was just left clutching the receiver, crying noiselessly, saying stupid 
things like, He's your father. He's really sick.
	They made so damn much *sense,* Irene and Ray. Frannie couldn't just say
everything would be okay, because they were probably right about everything,
and it would probably all only get worse from here. She didn't have any bright
ideas or anything. She didn't have any ideas at all; she had her diploma now,
but she still didn't have a job or anything, didn't know what she was going to
do with her life, except she guessed possibly marry Charlie, assuming he ever
did anything more than drop hints about maybe wanting to.
	Francesca just wished, for once, she didn't have to argue with any of them. 
She just wished they'd quit fighting the world, and do the normal thing. Come
to the hospital to see Pop. Go out dancing. Simple things. Why did everyone have to 
make things so sensible, and so complicated?
	For a minute, Francesca was distracted by the way her hand sort of disappeared
into the thick black fur of a coat she was fondling absently. See, here was the thing: 
Irene spent all day in this store, up to her eyeballs in the lushest, prettiest things 
money could buy, things that begged to be played in, rolled up in, touched and savored. 
Things that Frannie could usually only see from the other side of a window. So why 
didn't Irene ever enjoy...anything?
	She glanced over at Irene, who didn't seem to notice that Frannie had stopped
talking. Maybe she'd never really noticed that Frannie had *started* talking. 
Irene looked somber, mechanically folding and sorting by color, like a nun or an old 
lady, always thinking about something impossibly far away.
	Frannie had no idea what her friend thought so much about, but whatever it is,
she was sure it was complicated. Too complicated to bother asking about.

	"Hey, Irene."
	She turned, looked a moment, and turned away. "Put that back."
	"Is this mink?"
	"Silver fox. Take it off, Frannie."
	"Here's what I'm thinking...." Even the intro, before she even got as far as
the idea itself, was delivered in a sly drawl, conspiratorial, dangerous.  Irene knew 
this wasn't going to be one of Francesca's better ideas.  "How long has it been since 
we played dress-up?"
	Irene turned her head again, just in time to see Frannie slip on a pair of
Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses that probably cost more than any item of clothing
Frannie had ever owned. The surprise of it, the transformation, was enough to
put Irene a few steps behind her own objection. The fur coat and the ripped jeans, 
the round, dark red frames of the sunglasses and the dark pink roundness of Francesca's 
mouth, the way she held her head up and to the side, as if for the convenience of 
imaginary photographers, made her look like a movie star - well, maybe a little more 
ethnic than most movie stars, but still glamorous. 
	Irene couldn't help smiling. "You're a little overdressed for the clubs around
here."
	"So what are they gonna do? Throw me out for blowing the curve on the dress
code?"
	"*And* you couldn't afford the glasses, let alone the coat."
	"No, but...."
	"No."
	"Irene-"
	"*No.* No stealing from my job."
	"*Stealing?* Who said *stealing*? I'm talking about *borrowing.*"
	"No, Frannie. I said, no."
	"You sound like my mother."
	And Irene, whose best defense had always been silence, heard herself scream,
heard the noise reverberate off the mirrored walls and the frescoed ceiling.  "FUCK 
YOU!"

	She wanted to be mad, but Frannie could feel her chin quivering instead,
couldn't call up anything but wounded confusion. What did she do?  Just a stupid coat, 
just a game, just something to think about that would be fun and make them look special, 
and Irene was the only person who never *yelled* at her. Except that now Irene did, 
too, and Francesca was vaguely amazed at how lonely that made her feel. How terribly 
lonely.
	"*Fine,*" she grumbled, and her voice was weak, but appropriately bitchy as
she turned away. "Forget it, all right? I'm sorry for even trying."
	But after the first minute or two, Francesca couldn't keep pouting without a
little feedback, and she looked back at Irene, whose hands were braced on the
front counter, holding her up white-knuckled and rigid, and Frannie couldn't help 
walking closer, then running her fingers soothingly down Irene's spine.  One of her 
press-on nails came off, but Francesca ignored it.
	Just for a second, Francesca thought about trying to talk sense to her friend.
Trying to argue. Maybe say that it was a *good* thing, sounding like a mother, confess 
that she often had these crazy thoughts about Irene taking over everything, putting 
things right at last, smart as she was and decent and honest and real as she always 
had been. Maybe telling Irene that it wouldn't be the worst thing on earth, would 
it, if they both married boys from the neighborhood - and okay, maybe Irene couldn't 
be with Ray, now that Ray was studying to be a cop, but she'd been dating Robert Greene 
for almost a year, and she liked him, at least as much as Francesca liked Charlie 
- got married in big church weddings and had lots of babies and turned out, well, 
maybe not *different* from their mothers, but *better.* They'd be bossy, but they'd 
laugh with their kids too, play with them as well as fret over them.  They'd make
pasta and have husbands who stayed a little romantic and had honest jobs and took 
the kids to baseball games on weekends so that Irene and Francesca could have time 
to shop and remember how they'd been a little crazy when they were younger, but in 
a harmless way. Irene would make a good mother. She sounded like one; that was good.
	But it was so hard to put up any kind of debate with Irene. She had things in
her head, like that this neighborhood was a living death, and that you had to
run away and stay crazy to stay real. Whatever Irene saw in her future, it
wasn't pasta and babies and Easter dinners for thirty relatives.  Francesca often 
wondered if Irene's dreams were beautiful, or terrible, or both.
	So instead of trying to sort through the tangle of past and future that always
seemed to be tightening in knots around Irene Zuko, Frannie just kissed her ear.

	Timidly, Irene reached back and touched her friend's hair. The part of
herself that she didn't like, the sharp-tongued and bitter part, reminded Irene
that this was exactly how she'd gotten into trouble in the first place, wasn't
it? One soft touch, one kiss waiting for permission to become two.  One person
who listened and let you be an idiot sometimes, and came back to you over and over, 
let you be special. And it feels good, so good, and so you lean back into it, and 
then those lips are on your neck and your knees are getting weak and you just want 
to be here, locked up someplace private, just you and the one who holds you like a 
gift.
	Mother. Mother. Mother, may I? Irony as sweet as rotten fruit, Freud would
laugh and laugh at Irene Zuko, longing for the womb, wanting to be accepted completely, 
transferring, isn't that right? Empty childhood, cold mother, abusive father, and 
so she was a sucker for the warmth of a human touch, for someone who promised to take 
care of her, and look at her now. Look at her now, a mother herself, when she was 
so scared and lonely and *motherless* that some nights she could only lie in bed, 
cocooned in the dark enclosed space she'd created with some blankets and some curtain 
rods, and try to keep breathing.
	Francesca's arms worked around her, fox fur tickling the sensitive inside of
Irene's elbows as Frannie reached under her arms, around her ribs, one hand lying 
sidelong against her belly so that Irene could suddenly and fiercely imagine that 
the baby's heart and the pulse in Francesca's wrist were pounding in perfect unison, 
all three of them connected, breathing into and through each other. She shivered, 
and Francesca shimmied playfully against her, letting fur and body settle more warmly 
around her.
	Gratitude - *you understand* - and desire - *we can be...* - flared up
simultaneously, as they had before (at least once too often, as the bitch in
the back of Irene's mind kept count of these things), and Irene turned away
from the counter and into the warmth of Frannie. "Let's just not go out," she
murmured, following with her body the short arc her words made, ending with her
mouth pressed tight to Frannie's.

	Irene when you could get her to touch you, and especially when you could get
her to kiss you, was a whole different kettle of girl. She was always so alive-seeming, 
so with you, and the funny thing about Irene was that she seemed to love *right now* 
the most, whatever you were doing right now. She wasn't like boys - a very obvious 
thing, but sometimes it struck Frannie again, bringing a combined sense of confusion 
and amusement - because they always seemed to want what came *next,* driving you on 
ahead of yourself with a delicious, take-your-breath excitement, like running down 
the stairs on Christmas morning. No, Irene was Christmas Eve, the bells at midnight 
mass, she was absolutely visions of sugarplums.
	And a really good kisser, besides.
	Frannie fumbled to get the sunglasses off herself, but Irene took hold of her
hand, and it always made Francesca's heart flip-flop when she remembered over
again how Irene touched her, sort of bossy and sort of kind at the same time, in charge 
of the world, but in charge of just the good things, like fur and friendship and kissing. 
"Leave them on," she said softly, her lips brushing Frannie's. "You look like a movie 
star...."
	Obnoxiously, like an insect buzzing across the room, Frannie could hear Pop's
voice, dismissive and bored: *You look like a porn star.* That was it, just that, 
and then he was out the door again, leaving Frannie wishing he'd yelled at her, wishing 
he'd been like everyone else's father and said *March right back up those stairs, 
young lady, you're not leaving the house like that!* He yelled at Ray and about Ray, 
but Frannie had gone almost overnight from being his perfect little girl to 
being...nothing. Just part of the house and family he had to escape from every single 
night, part of his nothing life, just more nothing special.
	But you couldn't be mad at Pop. Not when you'd seen him so weak and white and
helpless, pieces of him failing and him still never having enough to drink, always 
wanting more. You had to feel sorry for him, when all the things he thought could 
make him special were turning him into a prisoner, maybe -probably - even killing 
him, and all the things you thought could make you special were working out so damn 
well.
	Irene. Irene Zuko made her special, Irene who hated everything that was fake
or trivial or simple, and she'd never be kissing Frannie like this if Frannie were 
those things. In Irene's eyes, she was some kind of star, flashy and shining and 
talented, and Jesus, Irene read things for fun that you only ever heard about in 
English class, she could tell real designer clothes from fake ones just by the way 
they were stitched together, she would *never,* never waste her time on anyone 
second-class. Irene liked deep things, fine things, elegant things, complicated 
things. And she liked Frannie Vecchio.
	Plus, she was good at everything. *Everything.*

	Everything with Frannie was a game - thank God, because standing in line to
get into a club tonight sounded really fucking boring, but then again, so did being 
a grown-up. What really, really sounded good to Irene was playing dress-up, and that 
meant that Frannie's hooker jeans had to go, and the lace bra that always rubbed 
roughly against her nipples, making them tight and red-looking and inviting Irene 
to suck on them merely for medicinal purposes.  Those were Frannie's clothes, familiar 
and therefore fairly likeable, but no good to play with.
	Fur coat, starlet sunglasses, high heels, a string of cultured pearls,
shockingly white around Frannie's throat - things from someone else's world,
someone's boring, bridge-club world suddenly turned shocking and lurid by crash- 
intersecting with utterly non-bridge things like horny, naked Italian girls just out 
of Catholic high school and pregnant teenaged lesbian Mafia princesses, which sounded 
amazingly funny when you thought of it in the third person that way, and in fact sort 
of was...funny. Sort of hilarious.
	When Irene started to laugh, Francesca joined right in, even though she wasn't
completely in on the joke, just because that's the kind of person she was.  Everything 
a game, game for anything, tagging happily along wherever Irene's twisted mind could 
go, whether or not she understood it, and really, wasn't that the *fun* part? Each 
of them leading the other blind and happy and trusting into curiouser and curiouser 
places, the best part of growing older, the flip-side to responsibility and 
disillusionment and uncertain futures.  This was the part where they got to go west, 
get better, know more and do more and when you got right down to it, Irene's only 
real goals in life had something to do with changing the necessary into the potential, 
going up into that blue-sky place where anything could happen and things weren't 
planned generations in advance, which happened to be sort of the place where things 
got funny and wild and twisted, and Frannie would always go there with her, blind
or not, serious or not, safe or not.
	The game was in the mixing and matching - the bland, cold taste of pearls, the
feel of them hard between her teeth, and then the slightly salty taste of the skin 
over Frannie's collarbone, her teeth searching for purchase against the planes and 
gentle swells of her friend's chest, all those smooth, flat places up and down her 
body, and the way her breasts appeared, looking substantial but rolling and shifting 
every time Irene nuzzled them or shaped them with her hand. The even, silky texture 
of Frannie's long leg as Irene kissed along it, and each feathery-soft fox hair 
prickling comfortably along Irene's right cheek while each whiskery-sharp hair that 
prickled her left cheek was unmistakably Francesca. Irene could almost visualize the 
sizzling sound, the little plume of steam, as she let a few drops from Frannie's bottle 
fall onto her heated skin, the dark amaretto rhinestones rolling slowly downhill into 
the well of Frannie's navel, and the taste of orange and alcohol swirled together 
on Irene's tongue with the taste of sweat and the ambient smell of Francesca's
lust.
	The imaginary sizzling became a very real hiss on Frannie's lips as Irene
dripped a little more of the cool liquor a little closer to the flame of heat
between her legs, and then a long, aching groan as Irene sampled the results of
her bartending efforts, liquid pooling into liquid, a cocktail of sweet and sour, 
mix and match, hot and cold, until the taste of amaretto was all but gone, lingering 
just faintly inside Irene's mouth, while the taste of Frannie was getting stronger 
and headier all the time.
	She wondered, with slightly more than curiosity and slightly less than
outright jealousy, if anyone else did this to Frannie. Irene knew there hadn't
been as many men as a lot of people thought; she also knew there'd been a few,
but would even Francesca, fearless as she usually was, ask for something like
this? Irene couldn't, hadn't been able to, even though for the most part she
trusted both Ray and Robert - no, she trusted them totally, it wasn't them at
all. Irene didn't know what it was, exactly, except that no amount of zeal to
please her on either of her boyfriends' part could quite overcome that lump of
residual nice-girl awkwardness on Irene's side of things when it came to letting any 
man put his mouth on her clit. With Frannie, though.  That was different, easier, 
God knew why. Maybe it was just...Frannie.
	Of course, not for the first time, the shreds of niceness Irene had left
seemed to have done nothing but cause her problems. The nice, ordinary things
that happened in her mother's romance novels, the quasi-Catholic, almost-marital 
fucking she *had* asked for turned out to have been a lot worse idea in the long run.
Irene almost stopped what she was doing, almost looked up, and almost gave in to that 
deep yearning to confide in her best friend, to be intimate inside to outside with 
Frannie. Nothing should be taboo, not with Francesca, not when they'd come this far, 
knew each other this deeply. And to have Frannie's sympathy, her compassion, her 
*presence* inside this unmitigated disaster -
	God, it was tempting. 
	"What?" Francesca's voice was a little taut, stressed out with the sudden
non-touch of Irene's mouth, but threaded through it, bright like small lights in the 
darkness, like the slits of light that made it through the gaps in the curtains around 
Irene's bed, there was something other than frustration.  Something a little dubious, 
a little hopeful, like a simple *what?* could be a real question, maybe a longshot 
question, but a real one anyway, all inconvenient circumstances aside.
	"I'm pregnant," she mumbled into the soft, wet skin of Francesca's thigh.
	"Oh. Wow. Oh - *wow.*"
	"It's not a big deal." It was her instinct to protect - that was the Zuko in
her, as impossible for Irene to deny as it was for Frankie. They were both of them 
doomed to go on in the ways they were born to go. Ruling.  Controlling.  Preserving.
 	And for once, for one pure, blue-sky moment, it felt good to give in. Good to 
have control over herself, to use her voice and her lies and her lips and her willpower 
to defend Francesca from this. "Really, Fran, it's no big deal."
	"It's..." She pushed up on one elbow, absently shoved the sunglasses up so
they almost disappeared in her dark, abundant hair. "It's *kind* of a big deal...?" 
Sure that it was, equally sure that Irene knew what she was talking about. It made 
Irene smile a little - mix and match. Nothing ever seemed to be going just one direction. 
Funny how they were growing up, and slipping every day so much further into the past, 
habits and genetics and tradition and necessity exerting an iron-shod pressure on 
them even as they were getting old enough to find their own way.
	With every breath, it got easier to talk about, and saying it *made* it all
true, rubbed out the panicky flotsam of confusion. "Look, I was really scared
about it for a while, because I felt...stuck. But I'm not stuck, Frannie - I have 
options. Daddy really likes Robert, I mean, he'd be mad, but he'd get over it if we 
got married right away; it's not like it's never happened before, and it's not like 
anyone's going to be counting the months too loudly, if they know what's good for 
them. But then, see, it's too - it's too soon, I mean, it's not Robert, I love Robert, 
but I want to go to college, I'm too young, this isn't what I want. So I don't *have* 
to do anything, but I know - I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take care of 
it."
	She was going to take care of it. Irene could hear her heart beating in her
ears, amplified, everything suddenly larger and more perfect, powerful and honest. 
She was Irene Zuko, she had her mother's calculating caution and her father's ruthless 
resolve, she was no hothouse flower, and she'd come so far, was so near to the things 
she'd wanted. So this was an obstacle, this was unexpected, but Irene could take care 
of it. If there was one thing her life had taught Irene, it was that the judicious 
combination of money, courage, and blood could solve any problem. Including this one.
	Gently, Frannie's hand brushed over Irene's hair. "You're okay?"
	"I'm fine." The words came out with an aftertaste of grief; it felt strange
for this to be fine, this was a life and a death they were talking about, and once 
upon a time Irene had hidden in the cavern of her bed and pretended that she was adopted, 
that she was nothing more than a prisoner of this family that treated lives and deaths 
the way they did, like business, like a means to an end. And now she was no one's 
hostage princess, just a Zuko. Taking care of what was hers, weighing off her baby 
against her life, choosing, ready to make this happen and then go on. She was no one's 
princess anymore, no foundling, no heroine. "I'm fine," she said again, and this time 
she put the last of her grief into it, packed it up and sent the words out away from 
her, and pain along with them. From here on out it was only business.
	Francesca's hand tightened on her hair, four tapered, plastic nails and one
warm, round pad of finger. Slowly, deliberately, Irene found the place with her tongue 
where the taste of Frannie was strongest, undiluted, and then licked upward, spreading 
the thick wetness as she went, until she could feel the trembling in Frannie's legs 
vibrating straight through her. Irene heard the clatter as one of the shoes that didn't 
belong to Fran caught on the leg of the display table and popped off, bouncing heavily 
across the wooden floor.

	Whenever she made Frannie come, Irene would always stop whatever she was doing
and put her hands in the same place, fingers laced together, flat over Francesca's 
stomach, the low part of her stomach, so that Irene's thumbs rested in the warm joint 
of Frannie's thighs. She did it to feel the way she got Frannie off, the way her hips 
jerked and her stomach clenched and her breath came out of her in long, shrill waves 
of noise. That was one of the amazingly sweet things about sober and faraway Irene 
Zuko - how her eyes narrowed in pure sensual bliss just from being close to your 
pleasure. The way *she* gasped and groaned when *you* came.
	She made Frannie feel like the center of everything, like Jennifer Beals in
*Flashdance* when she finally got her big chance to audition for the dance company. 
The things Irene did to her, the way Irene pulled her deeper and deeper into perfect 
lack of control, perfect freedom, it was just like having watchful, approving eyes 
on her, a panel of impartial judges taking it all under consideration and thinking, 
*She's good, she's great, we have to have her.* Not that Frannie had ever auditioned 
for anything, or been really great like Jennifer Beals at anything, but she knew this 
was how it would feel. 
	Irene made her know it.  Irene just had that way of knowing what you needed, 
what was good for you - and not just like *that,* but what you really *needed,* what 
you couldn't even explain to yourself that you were missing. Francesca wished she 
had that knack, but for her it had been trickier, coaxing information out of Irene,
trial and error, just working at it and working at it until she started to pick
up a secret here and a secret there, things that made Irene's eyes roll back, made 
her beg Francesca not to stop. Frannie didn't just *know,* and God knew Irene had 
never been the type to tell her, but piece by piece, she'd learned what to do, and 
somehow earning it was less magical, but more romantic than if she'd been blessed 
with Irene's unerring sexual instincts.
	Irene liked to be kissed in strange places, like the cup of her palm and the
ticklish zone where the outside of her breast and the inside of her upper arm brushed 
together. Irene liked a tongue flickering in her ear, a finger brushing casually along 
the crack of her ass, she liked to have her nipples squeezed harder than Francesca 
could quite imagine being comfortable. 
	Francesca was flighty, she forgot a lot of things, but she forgot empty,
black-and-white things, never things like this, like where and how to touch Irene. 
Beyond facts, it had become wisdom, it had become something flesh and blood, until 
it might as well be instinct in the end.
	It amazed her that there could be anything about Irene's body that Frannie
couldn't feel, couldn't sense. She stroked Irene's flat belly, amazed at how tiny 
a person would have to be to hide in there, still a little shocked by how far Irene 
would go not to be like their mothers. Irene would have the education, the career, 
the husband, and the babies that *she* wanted, on her own terms, and the thought of 
Irene's sheer *want,* the power of those beautiful-terrible dreams in Irene's head, 
almost scared Frannie.
	Just as she was getting ready to prove once again that Irene liked it when
Frannie hummed softly while going down on her, a stray thought floated through
Frannie's mind, late to the party, brought on by nothing in particular.  "Irene?"
	"Hmm?"
	"The baby - is Robert's. Right? It's Robert's?"
	Complicated silence, and Frannie had time to think about friendship, and love,
and how you always wanted to believe it was unconditional, the love you got, the love 
you gave. But sometimes it could only be unconditional if you closed your eyes, just 
like Lake Michigan was as big as the ocean when you couldn't see to the other side, 
and it didn't matter how big it really was.  It was just so much water you couldn't 
take it all in with your eyes, and love was like that, you took in as much as you 
could see and what was invisible....should stay that way.
	"Of course," Irene said. "Prom, I think."
	"Prom, you think. Not graduation." In the sourness of her own voice, Francesca 
heard the sound of the water reaching the shore, and she was close enough to the limits 
of her own capacity for friendship that she could have reached out and touched the 
end....
	But when Irene spoke, you had to believe. You really did. Even when you didn't. 
Even when you knew that the time between when Robert and Irene had been Prom King 
and Queen and when your older brother had come home from college for the first time 
since he left to see you graduate only added up to nine days, so little time, such 
a deep and narrow gap between Irene's problems and Frannie's *family*.... 
	"Robert. Robert is the father." *Close your eyes.  Believe it.*
	And maybe love wasn't limitless, but it was pretty wide, and Frannie could
make it stretch this far, so far. Irene was her best friend, the one who played with 
her and took her seriously, the eyes that took her in and the mouth that kissed her 
like Christmas. Irene was the one who had dreams and a future, and if Frannie felt 
lost and at loose ends sometimes, like she wanted to matter somewhere but couldn't 
think where that would be, Irene was the one she trusted to come up with the answers. 
Irene took care of her when she was smaller than life, like the right kind of mother, 
like the thing you measured all husband-material candidates against, and if Irene 
*said* Robert, then goddammit, Robert it would be, forever and ever, amen.
	For simple pleasure, for the taste and the thrill and the adventure of it,
Francesca leaned down and put her mouth where she knew it would make Irene's hips 
rise up off the floor and her voice rise up to a high, needle-sharp point.
	For complicated love, Frannie closed her eyes and trusted Irene to make
everything right.


I believe this is heaven to no one else but me
And I'll defend it as long as I can be
Left here to linger in silence;
If I choose to, would you try to understand?
-"Elsewhere," Sarah McLachlan


CONTENT WARNING:
	This story deals with the topics of teenage pregnancy and abortion.  It's not
*about* either of those things, and it is absolutely not a political statement of 
any kind, but given the personal nature of the issues, I felt like some people would 
appreciate knowing that I was going to be springing this on them at some point.