if we wanted, we could fall (part 2)

[wizened_cynic]

It didn't take long for Alex to discover the sorts of trouble an unsupervised cookie could get itself into.

It took her only slightly longer before she reconciled herself to the absurdity of the whole situation, but once she'd mopped up the marshmallow creme Lorelai had vomited on her counter after getting drunk on root beer, Alex was pretty convinced that the talking, moving, and now hungover cookie was here to stay.

"I don't feel good," Lorelai moaned, clutching her head with one arm.

"It's not even real beer," Alex said, laying her down on a folded paper towel. "Besides, how did you get it out of the fridge?"

"The General opened himself and treated me to it."

"Who?"

"The General. Your fridge. He says he wishes you ate better food because all that take-out is making him sick."

"You're drunk," Alex said, because she could only handle one inanimate object coming to life at a time.

Lorelai didn't reply, and a few minutes later, she was snoring.

That was the first day.

The second day, Lorelai discovered coffee.

Alex arrived home from work to discover her entire kitchen counter in disarray, and Lorelai literally bouncing from one end to the other. "Alex!" Lorelai yelled as soon as she saw Alex. "Alex! Alex Alex Alex! I am your cookie and I love you! But not as much as I love coffee! Am I right, boys?" She glanced in the direction of the coffeemaker, the toaster, and the microwave, all of which, thankfully, did not answer.

"They're shy," Lorelai explained before sprinting towards Alex --- damn, she was fast and leaping off the edge of the counter into Alex's arms. "No worries! You're still my favorite! We're BFF!"

"How do you even know what BFF means?"

"I am a very learned cookie."

"Right," Alex said.

"You don't sound like you believe me," Lorelai said.

"It's not that I don't believe you, it's more like I don't have a basis for comparison. You're the only anthropomorphic cookie I've ever known."

"So you do agree that I'm very smart and delicious."

"That's not what I said."

"But I'm the only cookie you know who can talk! And walk! And do this!"

To Alex's horror and amazement, Lorelai began to jump up and down and move her limbs in a series of movements that, she hated to admit, was kind of adorable. "C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me," Lorelai sang as she continued to dance, "C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me. Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!"

The laugh took Alex by surprise, ripped its way out of her throat before she realized what was happening. "What the hell is that?" she asked, unable to stop laughing now that she'd started.

"I'm pop-locking," Lorelai said blissfully. "Why, what does it look like?"

"Like you're in danger of hurting yourself."

As soon as she said that, Lorelai lost her balance and tumbled forward, off the edge of the table. "Help!" she cried, and without thinking Alex lunged forward and grabbed Lorelai before she reached the floor.

It took a minute for both of them to catch their breath. (Wait: do cookies breathe?)

"You saved me," Lorelai said in awe. "I could've broken my arms and legs and head, but you saved me."

"Wouldn't want you handicapped and unable to pop-lock," Alex said, only halfway sarcastic.

"A-ha! So you admit I was popping and not ---"

"Looking completely spastic."

Lorelai stuck her tongue out at Alex, which made Alex laugh again, because she wasn't aware that cookies could have tongues. "Hey, Alex."

"What?"

"I like it when you laugh."

Alex considered this for a moment, then pushed the thought away and started making plans to cookie-proof the kitchen.


*

Lorelai led a pretty good life for a cookie.

She knew that, and she had no real complaints, aside from the fact that she got the most boring human in the history of the world.

Alex had to work most days, and she refused to take Lorelai to the office no matter how hard Lorelai begged, so Lorelai would stay on the couch and watch TV until Alex came home.

Everything Lorelai learned, she learned from television. She learned that her favorite color was pink, that anything other than granite counters were unacceptable, that Seth loved Ryan, that for $49.99 you could buy a steam mop that would kill 99% of the harmful germs on your floors and if you ordered immediately you could get a free iron to go with it (worth $29.99).

"Stop watching the Home Shopping Network," Alex told her when Lorelai tried to get her to buy a Magic Bullet. You could make smoothies with it. With vegetables. Lorelai wouldn't drink it, and she wouldn't advise anybody to, but she thought she would enjoy hearing the vegetables scream before they were shoved into the machine and chopped into pieces. Or liquefied. There were four blending options!

"But I've got nothing else to do," Lorelai whined. "You never do anything fun."

"Two weeks ago you were in a box," Alex said. "If I were you, I wouldn't be that picky."

"I want to go outside," Lorelai said. She learned from TV that Outside was a place full of adventure. "I want to see the palm trees."

"We live in Wisconsin," Alex said, as if that meant anything to Lorelai. "No palm trees. Not a whole lot of anything except snow."

"Snow! I love snow!" Lorelai hopped off the arm of the sofa and into Alex's lap, pushing away the newspaper she'd been trying to read. "Come on, let's go! Outside!"

Alex narrowed her eyes at Lorelai. "If I take you outside, will you leave me alone?"

"Probably not. But if you don't, I'm just going to sit here and sing my themesong until you do."

"Oh, you have a themesong now."

"Yes, and it's really, really annoying."

"I would expect nothing less from you." Alex sighed and took those things off her face. Glasses, they were called. Lorelai liked it when Alex wore them, she thought as she hopped onto Alex's outstretched hand.

Lorelai had never been anywhere other than the kitchen and the living room, so it was a treat to go down the hallway and out the front door and ---

"Ooooh," Lorelai gasped as a new sensation hit her. It surrounded her on all sides and she couldn't feel her legs or arms or face. "It's cold."

"As winter tends to be. Here."

Alex set her down on a ledge of something white and fluffy like powdered sugar.

"Hello, snow," Lorelai said.

"Hello," came a million tiny voices. Lorelai looked up and saw them, the tiny bits of snow, floating down like somebody high up in the sky was sifting a cup of flour. It reminded her of Before, when the witch had just started to work on Lorelai and her friends. It was the most beautiful thing Lorelai had ever seen, and Lorelai knew then that she loved snow more than anything else in the world, except for maybe Alex.

Lorelai watched the snow fall for a long time, amazed by how something could be so pretty, until Alex said, "Are we done here?"

"Can we go farther Outside next time?" Lorelai asked. If snow was so wonderful, she couldn't wait to see what else was out there. She'd heard good things about Target.

"If you're good," Alex said.

"I'm always good," Lorelai said. She held out her arm. "But I'll be extra good if you take me outside again. Pinky swear."

"You do know you don't actually have a pinky."

"Semantics."

Alex raised her eyebrows, but she took Lorelai's arm and shook it.


*

"You're a liar," Lorelai said, with all the venom a six-inch tall cookie contained, which was to say, not a whole lot. "You said you would take me outside and you didn't."

"I said I would take you outside if you were good," Alex pointed out, "and who was it that dumped an entire bag of frozen peas into the sink and turned on the garbage disposal?"

(Speaking of which, Alex had no idea how Lorelai managed to do that. She didn't want to find out.)

"I was trying to protect you!"

"From what, nutrients? I told you; I'm not a cookie, I can't live on sugar all the time."

"Why not? It feels great! I have so much energy, and it's great for my complexion."

"Because of a little something called diabetes. But that's not my point," Alex paused as she realized that she'd been arguing with a cookie for ten minutes, and that it felt completely natural to her. Shit. "My point is, you didn't uphold your end of the bargain, so you're going to have to sit on that couch and watch C-SPAN until you leave my vegetables alone."

"NEVER!" Lorelai shouted, throwing herself into a corner of the sofa and covering herself with a cushion.

"Suit yourself," Alex said, tossing the remote into her purse. Remote, check. Lunch, check. Keys --- she'd left them by her nightstand. She went to fetch them, and when she came back Lorelai was still beneath the cushion, refusing to answer when Alex announced, "I'm leaving."

Alex shook her head, more at herself than anything. Here she was, bickering with a cookie like it was an everyday occurrence (it was practically an everyday occurrence), like it wasn't crazy or weird or unfathomable. Maybe that was the very definition of insanity: nothing else in the world seemed insane, because you were.

Insane or not, that was how Alex Cabot lived now.

She woke up every morning to the smell of gingerbread wafting from the top of her dresser, where Lorelai slept on a plate, tucked beneath a Fruit Roll Up. She went to work at nine-thirty, she ate lunch at noon, she went home at five and had dinner ready by six. She ate while Lorelai pranced around on the table, demanding to know about Alex's day whenever she wasn't lecturing Alex on the evils of fruits and vegetables. In the evenings she watched TV because Lorelai demanded it, and though Alex would never admit it, sometimes she did feel bad about leaving Lorelai alone all day. The insipid Fox shows merely insulted Alex's intelligence and didn't inflict physical pain, and if it made Lorelai happy to have someone to babble to during The O.C., then why not?

Alex had found what passed for a life.

Work was slow, as usual. Time was a luxury for New Yorkers; they never had enough of it. But here in Wisconsin, it was the opposite: they had too much. To compensate, everything, everybody moved slower. It could take one of Alex's co-workers hours to read a two-paragraph letter and send it back to her. It once took a whole day just for Alex to get a replacement highlighter for the one she'd used up.

Unknowingly, she found herself wondering what Lorelai was up to, whether Lorelai was still angry with her, and was startled when a voice called out, "Emily?"

One of the claims adjusters from fourth floor was standing by her cubicle. Jeff, his name was. Maybe John.

"Yes?"

"Do you have the police report for the Henderson file? Domestic break-in?"

Alex didn't, but pretended to poke around her desk, because it would be against the rules of Wisconsin to achieve anything in a timely manner. "I don't seem to have it. Maybe you can ask Tracy?"

Jeff/John seemed to consider that an acceptable course of action. "Thanks, Em," he said, flashing her a smile before he disappeared.

No sooner had he left did Alex hear a familiar voice say, "Why did he call you Emily?"

Huang once said that denial was a powerful tool, and now Alex was determined to use it. She closed her eyes and placed her hands over her face, praying that when she opened them again, she would be greeted with silence and Lorelai would be home watching an ER marathon on TNT and not sticking her head out of Alex's purse, demanding to know the sordid details of Alex's double life.

Or better yet, that when she opened her eyes, she'd be in New York again.

Part 3