Like Mother, Like Daughter (Season 3)

Chapter One: Back To Square One

I could physically feel the blood sticking to my fingers as I stared down at Cara in the courtroom and, despite the bustle of police escorting Carsen out and evacuating everyone else, it seemed as if people had given up in their attempts to move me. I just knelt there my fingers and palms caked in blood, staring down at Cara, her blue eyes registering shock, and her mouth open, in mid-scream, as she went to meet her own death...

"Goddammit," I muttered, silencing my phone alarm and peeking over at it, seeing seven a.m. reflected back at me, as I struggled to see. I pulled on my undershirt over my naked body, and yanked on my pair of panties as Hailey began to mewl in her crib. "Axel," I hissed as I finished pulling up my panties and moved his arm slightly. "It's seven. You need to get to the prison and I need to drop off Hailey at daycare, and get to work myself. Let's go. Come on."

Axel sighed, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands, his eyes on me as I crossed over to Hailey's crib, scooping her up into my arms and calming her. "How is she this morning?" he asked.

"Fine, of course," I said, my heart squeezing at the notion of Axel asking after my nearly seven-month-old daughter. I crossed the room and calmed her completely, setting her down on the changing table and tidying her up. "My shift ends at four today," I told him, "and I'll be picking up Hailey at four-thirty. I've got tomorrow off and Pops said that he and Uncle Ian can watch Hailey for the night if you want to sleep at your place."

"I'm fine with crashing here again," Axel says, flashing me a smile.

I blinked. "Should I still tell Pops and Uncle Ian to watch Hailey?"

"No, of course not. Besides, you've learned to be exceptionally quiet," he continues, crossing the room just as I've finished cleaning her up, and places a kiss on my exposed shoulder. "Not to mention the rather obvious fact that we're a couple, so the least I can do is have Hailey get used to me..."

I scoffed. "Oh, really?" I said, taking a moist towelette and cleaning off my hands, whereupon I turned around and let out a small squeal as Axel grabbed me by the hips and pulled me lengthwise against him. "I wasn't aware that we'd had the 'let's be a couple', or, 'let's try this again' conversation, Mr. Richland."

Axel grinned unabashedly down at me. "Oh, I see," he said, still holding me against him. "Iana, would you like to be my girlfriend?"

I threw my head back and laughed, thumping him on the shoulder, which got him to turn me loose for a moment. "I'm just fucking with you," I replied, standing on my toes to kiss him. "I was yours from the day you found me, chatting up Cara, in the cemetery. Trust me; I'm your girlfriend. Not like I have the time or the energy to sneak out and fuck someone else. I barely have enough time to focus on my job, Hailey, and you as it is..."

"Well, we'll just have to make more time for Hailey, then," Axel said simply. "You have the day off tomorrow, and so do I. We can plan something to do, the three of us, and maybe spend the night at my place, since it's Sunday the day after, and you're not working weekends, and neither am I for a while..."

I turned and looked at Axel. "You're not working weekends?"

"Just got the word last night about the warden rotation," Axel explained. "I don't have to work weekends again until January, and I'm not gonna complain."

I smiled slowly then, turning back around and picking up Hailey from the changing table. "I don't know about us sleeping over, Axel. Hailey's so used to being here, plus she's got her crib here and the daybed at Pops and Uncle Ian's house when she sleeps over there..."

Axel promptly put up his index finger, whereupon he got onto his phone and pulled up a shopping website and pulled up a shopping website and searched for a baby daybed, and, after finding one very close to the one at Pops and Uncle Ian's place, clicked to order it. He also clicked same-day shipping, and even though I shook my head at him, I felt the smile on my face at his triumph. "This way we can take the baby monitors with us and put her in my study," he said gently to me. "Take along the nightlight, too, if you want, and then you and I can be a little bit louder than we've been recently..."