Chapter Text
Wendy Crowe was not someone Alison was expecting to see at her door late on a Thursday evening. She still opened the door, but only after confirming that her pepper spray was still in her pocket.
"Good evening," she said, arms up on the door and door frame.
Wendy gave a relieved smile, the expression terrifying in that it raised the question of what could have possibly happened to make Wendy seek her out for comfort. "I assume you have a shower?" Wendy raised her hands that were stained with dried blood.
"Yeah, but I think you should probably be at a police station or a hospital."
"I just left the marshal's office and I…" Wendy's voice broke and then came back weaker. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
Alison cursed her helpful nature as she opened the door fully and gestured for wendy to come in. "Shower's down the hall to the right, I can probably find some clothes for you."
Wendy nodded and glanced down at the blood on her shirt, before entering without a word.
As the shower ran Alison dug a pair of sweatpants and an ex-boyfriend's T-shirt from her closet and put them on the ground outside the bathroom. She then put the kettle on for tea, only briefly considering going straight for the weed in her dresser instead.
Wendy stalked out of the bathroom in silence, looking ragged and undefended. The dangerous edge that defined her in Alison's mind was missing.
"How do you take your tea?" She asked, bringing the two mugs over to her table.
Wendy shrugged. "However you take it is fine." She settled at the table.
"Ok." Alison got the sugar bowl and a carton of milk as she tried to think of the right way to ask 'why are you here?' Wendy answered the question first though.
"I killed my brother this afternoon." It was said as something that would have to be said out loud a few more times before it was believed.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Alison had heard enough about Daryl not to be particularly broken up about the loss, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.
"He had it coming." Wendy grabbed the sugar bowl and started dolloping spoonfuls into her tea. "I got him on tape saying he's the one who took a shot at y'all, so Kendal's getting out. Guess I finally did some good as a mother."
"You've done a lot of good for him." Alison said it on instinct, but as the words sat in the room she found herself agreeing with them and her admiration for Wendy growing.
Wendy just snorted. "Can you really say with a straight face that I've been anything but shit as a mother?"
"I can quite confidently say that I've seen worse." Alison met her eyes as she said the words, making sure their honesty, and a sense of the shit she'd seen carried through.
Wendy's eyes plummeted to the sugar bowl as it sank in. She took a long drink from her mug.
“Do you have a place to stay?” Alison asked.
"I've been at Audrey's, but that's a crime scene now."
"Ok, well I guess I can fix up my couch for you. Does Kendal need a place too?"
“No, he’s staying in jail one more night.” Wendy drew a shaking hand through her hair. “They need to process the paperwork before my son can get his life back.”
“I’m sorry.” Alison nodded at the familiar ache of bureaucratic cruelty. “Where are you gonna take him once he’s out?”
Wendy smiled at the thought, some life slipping back into her cheeks. “Tomorrow we’ll go wherever he wants. Whenever any of his uncles would get out of jail they’d always want to go on a grand tour of the things they couldn’t get inside. I figure I can do that one last time, but he won’t be going to a brothel like they would.”
Alison drank in the odd mixture of grief, self pitying humor, and relief in Wendy’s voice. She was honored to have her so open in front of her; it brought up the admiration she kept finding herself feeling for Wendy.
“After that, well we’ll drive back to Florida and I’ll go back to being a paralegal, now with the actual responsibilities of being a single parent.”
“That sounds like it’ll be good for Kendal, and you’ll figure things out as you go.” Alison pressed her luck by laying a hand on Wendy’s hand. Wendy started at the contact but didn’t move away. She met Alison’s eyes briefly with a smile and then looked back to the table.
In a few moments Wendy had gathered enough of herself to put her walls back up. “So what do you do around here for fun?”
Alison had work tomorrow. She was on too thin ice to risk coming in late or tired. But Wendy was in her apartment, filled with that same fire that had Alison thinking about her more than you thought about a former charge’s parent. “You feel like lighting up?”
Wendy’s smile was almost predatory. “Absolutely.”
"C'mon then," Alison said and headed to her room. Wendy followed along and watched as Alison opened her underwear drawer to get her stash. She fought down her self consciousness under Wendy's gaze. She knew pretty well that she had nothing to be ashamed of.
She only remembered the swim suit when, a moment before closing the drawer, Wendy stepped up and plucked it out. "What's this then?" She asked, smiling with the power of having something to tease Alison with.
"It was a gift that sadly didn't come with a receipt." Alison deflected and began to roll a joint.
"Really, and who would buy you such a sexy number?" Wendy held up the two piece to gage how it would look on Alison.
Alison glared with a raised eyebrow, allowing Wendy to make the obvious guess.
"Raylan, huh, well it seems like he has a pretty good eye for these things. You'd look hot in this."
"Thanks." Alison focussed on the nearly completed task in front of her to hide her blush.
"So how are you two doing?" Wendy asked with faux casualness.
"I at least am doing great with my intentions to never see him again." Alison turned and lit the blunt. "You're welcome to see what kind of things he likes now."
Wendy shook her head. "With the way he went after Kendal I'll try and beat the shit out of him if I ever get him alone."
"Sounds fair." Alison breathed out her first hit and handed the blunt over. They traded off a few hits in silence.
Wendy broke the silence with a haphazard comment. “You know I only said those things to fuck with you right?”
“It definitely worked.” Alison looked at Wendy with curiosity and less well hidden appraisal. “You really gonna tell me you weren’t interested?”
“He was fine to look at, but I’ve spent too much time around murderers to ever sleep with one.” Alison let the assertion lie unchallenged as Wendy continued. “Besides you’re the one who actually got a taste, why’d you stop?”
Alison shrugged. “It seemed like it was time, like I’d gotten all the fun I was gonna get out of him and all that was left was danger. But screw that, there has to be something other than boys for us to talk about?”
“What do you usually do when you smoke?”
“You know the typical stoner things, lounge around, watch a movie, listen to music.” Alison waved the blunt towards the old cheap record player on her dresser and the ramshackle pile of CD’s around it.
“You better pick something good.” Wendy took the blunt back with a brush of their fingers.
Alison headed to the dresser, nervousness fading with the steps and weed buzz. She grabbed her two favorites for high listening from their places of prominence and turned to show them to Wendy. “Taylor Swift or the Indigo Girls?”
Wendy shifted on the bed to stare at her. “That’s your idea of good music?”
“What? You expecting me to honor my Kentucky living with some bluegrass?”
“I might prefer that.” Wendy smirked as she judged this newly revealed aspect of Alison. “Let’s go with the lesbian folk music.”
“Sounds good.” Alison put the CD in and then sauntered over to grab the blunt back.
Wendy surrendered it happily. They continued smoking through the first song and a half. Alison mumbling along with the words and Wendy giggling at her for it.
“Today’s Thursday isn’t it?” Wendy asked.
“Yeah, that matter?”
“Well it seems like that should matter to you, don’t you have to work in the morning?”
“Yeah, whatever, I'm sure It’ll be fine if I’m a few minutes late. It’s not like I’m on thin ice with my boss because someone tried to end my career or anything.” Alison smiled at Wendy, who let out a laugh that died out from guilt.
“Sorry about that,” she said, soft enough to almost be a whisper.
“It’s alright, a lot of people might even say it was justified given I tried to take your kid.”
“A kid I wasn’t even willing to claim as my own.”
“In my line of work I’ve learned to think of the people who care the most about a kid as their parents, and by those rules you were always his mother.”
Wendy lost herself in a grateful smile for a few moments. “Well by those rules the closest he has to a second parent is you.”
Alison giggled at that. “I don’t think I’m quite parent material. I’d rather stick to ‘cool gay aunt’ if you don’t mind.”
“I wish I could just stick to that. There’s no way I’m any more parent material then you.”
Alison patted Wendy’s shoulder and then just kept her hand there. “You’ll figure it out. But enough of this fear, Ghost is starting and that’s a song you can only feel yearning during.” Their giggles drowned out the opening notes but they listened intently to the rest, watching each other.
“How pathetic do you think it is that you’re probably the only person in this whole state I’m gonna miss?”
“I am very missable.” Alison giggled before pivoting into honesty. “But it seems like you were here for a few shitty months and there’s no reason to not just put everything about this whole fucking state in the rear view. Besides me of course.”
“Did you mean what you said about being a gay aunt?” Wendy turned her eyes back to the ceiling as she asked.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I care about Kendel and I’d be glad to keep in touch.”
Wendy returned her gaze to Alison. “I was more asking about the gay part.”
“Oh, uh,” Alison wished she could take another hit of the blunt, but it had already been finished and put out. “Yeah, I mean, until there are bi aunt stereotypes.”
“Cool.” Wendy scooted closer on the bed.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Wendy sat up and looked down at her. They both tried to find the next thing to say, the way to close the hesitance between them. “You really gonna make me sleep on the couch after this?”
“That does seem kind of rude.”
“Yeah, let’s see some of this famous southern hospitality.” Wendy leaned down, leaving the slimmest gap between their lips which Alison gladly closed.