Fanfic Preview! Fragile Things (Bianca/Reese)

[dreiser]

So I got around to writing down the start of the bitter Bianca fanfic. I figured I would share. Don't expect me to post a longer version of this anytime soon. This is just a preliminary start until I see how Bianca and Reese exit the scene.



Fist off, much props has to be given to meingeheimnis who chats with me on AIM and totally gave me tons of feedback on my plot ideas for this fanfic including some help with figuring out the title and my always lame music whore habit of picking a theme song for the story. Speaking of which, the title of this fanfic comes from the song Precious by Depeche Mode which also exemplifies the state of Bianca's life in the story.

All right! The synopses: Heartbroken and betrayed, Bianca Montgomery disappears with her daughters. Hiding from the woman she loves and her own family, closing off her emotions to everyone but her children, she starts her life over only to find herself drawn back by news of a tragedy.

This story takes place five years after Bianca exits Pine Valley and she seemingly disappears off the face of the planet, hiding from Reese and her family, she starts her life over in Dublin, Ireland. Feeling betrayed by her family and the woman she loves, she thinks it's best that she have nothing to do with either, and she closes herself off emotionally from everyone but her children. This story would have a pretty dark and bitter Bianca who is cynical about everything but her daughters and their love for her. She never plans on leaving Dublin until she watches the news and sees a report that her mother has had a heart attack and is in critical condition and for the first time in years, her emotions take hold and she returns to Pine Valley with her daughters.

Reese, in the meantime, has been looking for Bianca constantly since she left with the aid of Erica. She lives on and off in Pine Valley, never giving up hope that if she remained there in some capacity she would see Bianca and her daughters again. When Bianca returns after Erica's heart attack, she's overjoyed to see her, as is everyone else, but is shocked at the change in personality Bianca has gone through, blaming herself for this happening. There's also a residual anger that Bianca ran from her, taking her children away and refusing to listen to her, to let her fix things and put their relationship back together.

Slowly but surely, they make their way back to each other, and Reese rebuilds her relationship with the girls. If I do write this story, I'll probably post it at the same time as A Thousand Glimpses and use that fic, along with show canon, as the backstory for this fic. Basically this would be a really angsty and super drawn out romance and wouldn't have a lot of fluff since the story is told mostly from bitter Bianca's point of view but I will be giving Reese some focus once she appears.

Since the girls have been living in Ireland for five years they'll have a bit of Irish slang in their dialogue as will Bianca. I even imagine that since Gabrielle learned to speak while they lived there she would have an Irish accent as well.

Here's what I have of the story so far...

Prologue:

At the age of twenty eight, Bianca Montgomery finally had enough. Reese was the final straw, another in a long line of women that Bianca had loved and trusted who betrayed her in some fashion. It started with Sarah marrying a man she didn't love, denying the feelings they had for each other to please her parents, continuing with Frankie having sex with JR after declaring her love for Bianca, progressing to the charming Lena who stole from her mother and used Bianca to accomplish this, moving onto Maggie who spent years waffling on how she felt for Bianca only to cheat on her once they were finally together. She thought Maggie would be the worst of it because they were so close, they had been friends for such a long time and Maggie felt like a piece of Bianca's soul.

Then she met Reese and she was beautiful and she was intelligent and she was gregarious and she just seemed so utterly perfect. They had been so very happy in Paris while they planned their future, their second child, together. It was stupid, having Zach be the sperm donor, and it was even stupider not asking her sister for permission but she had been lost in a daze of happiness with Reese. Thinking of nothing but her desire to be with the other woman and the need to complete their family with another child.

Where did it all go wrong? The tornado, that's what Bianca sometimes thought. If only the tornado never happened, if only she had gotten the chance to explain to Kendall about Gabrielle and her feelings for Reese and this uncontrolled compulsion she had, this powerful desire to have a child with Reese as if to cement their love for one another. Maybe if she had then none of it would have happened, maybe Kendall would still love her, maybe Zach and Reese would have never gotten so close, maybe Reese…

Maybe Reese wouldn't have betrayed her and maybe she wouldn't be alone now, heartbroken and at odds with her sister who had been her rock, her constant support, and her closest friend for years. Her love life and her family relationships in ruins, Bianca wanted to blame it all on the tornado but she couldn't because there was that steady and realistic part of her, the Montgomery side as Uncle Jack liked to joke, and she knew it wasn't true. What was it then? Why did all of this happen and why did it all go so horribly wrong?

Bianca didn't have the answer but she did know she was sick of it. She was sick of being hurt and she was sick of being betrayed and she was sick of being a punching bag for life, constantly punished for her belief it was best to see the good in others. Now the only good she saw was in her children, innocent in all of this, deserving a stable and happy life and Bianca knew to provide that she had to escape her past.

Packing her things was the first step. It had confused Miranda so much at first, the move from Paris to Pine Valley then back to Paris for a matter of days before Bianca settled them into a small cottage eight miles outside of Dublin, Ireland. No one knew she was there, not Reese, not her family, no one. She made sure of that when she left Paris, transferring her trust fund money into those offshore accounts her father, ever the cynical pragmatist, created for her when she was a teenager. For over a year Bianca wavered on her decision, wanting to call her mother, wanting to write her sister, wanting to see Reese, wanting Reese to see the children, wanting to make amends but she couldn't. She just kept seeing the anger, the betrayal, the devastation, the hurt, and that cold look that told her she wouldn't be forgiven for what she did, for having Gabrielle, and she didn't want to raise her daughter around that. Reasoning with herself that Reese had lost her chance to be a part of their family by making a mockery of their wedding vows, doing this enough until she believed it, allowing her bitterness to take hold.

It was best that she just disappear, vanish into the void, allowing her family to get on with their lives while she did the same on with her own. This kept her safe and it protected her children and that was all that mattered now. They were the only real thing, the only good thing Bianca had left in her life, and she devoted herself to them utterly, almost obsessed in her parenting, driven to ensure that she gave them the life that she promised during her relationship with Reese. Eventually Miranda stopped asking about Reese and her family just as she stopped asking about Maggie and they slowly built a life in Dublin and Bianca decided to put her inheritance to good use.

Five years had come and gone since she left Pine Valley and in that time work and her children became Bianca's focus, the things that brought her joy. Helping women at their very worst, when their souls had been shattered and their bodies violated, assisting in their recovery, this was her daily life and it was fulfilling to know that her own nightmare at nineteen was helping these women now.

Romantic love had no place in Bianca's world, she wanted nothing to do with it. Satisfaction was found in one night stands and brief planned seductions, taking what she wanted but always letting the women know that's all it was. Their time together was nothing more and nothing less than the purely physical and sometimes they listened but it was always harder when they didn't. When they broke the rules, when thought they could change her, when they tried to make her fall in love and believe in romance and happy endings.

It never ended well when they did that.

This was the crux of Bianca's existence and while it wasn't the fairy tale she pictured for herself as a young girl or even as a teenager, she was strangely content with her life. She might not have romance and she might not trust as she used to but she had her work and she had her girls and she knew she wouldn't ever be hurt again because she refused to let it happen and that was enough for Bianca to keep going.


Fragile Things

By: Dreiser


"Best be getting your paralytic ass up!"

That was what Bianca heard as she opened her eyes on Sunday morning. Rolling over, she grumbled in protest when the shades to her window were jerked open and she was greeted with a bright ray of sunshine. Putting a pillow over her head, she muttered, "I despise you."

"Nah, you don't, I'm your trusty servant girl, have been for years," replied Shannon Kirkconnel, yanking the covers off the brunette and arching an eyebrow on seeing Bianca completely naked. "I never get what you has against wearin' jammies."

"They itch," Bianca griped and she sat up, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Are the girls up?"

"They're up and eatin' breakfast without their Ma," said Shannon smartly, opening Bianca's closet and tossing a pair of pants and a red shirt onto the bed. "I've cooked up a mess of eggs and even a spot of genuine Irish sausage an' some black pudding."

"Brilliant," complimented Bianca, picking up her bra from where she threw it onto the floor and putting it on. Searching through her underwear drawer, she said, "What did you do last night while I was off getting scuttered?"

"Watched the telly, played cards," Shannon said and she leaned against the door, observing Bianca dress. "Gabby's turnin' into a shark. She beat her sister ten times in a row. I'm thinkin' we should take her on a trip to Monte Carlo, poker's her game."

Giving a humorous snort and shimmying into the pants Shannon laid out for her, Bianca drawled, "I could see her wearing dark sunglasses and conning grown men. It suits her somehow." Turning to the other woman and recognizing the look on her face, the one that was a barely restrained curiosity and a lecture in the making, she asked with supreme weariness, "What?"

"Who'd you shag?" asked Shannon plainly. "That blonde wisp of a thing that’s been after you? Or the Rooney girl? She's been moonin' over you for a time now. I seen her followin' you about last week when you was going to pick up Miranda."

In moments like these Bianca regretted letting Shannon get so close. They met four years ago, when she first started the Dublin Rape Crisis Center, and Shannon had been one of her first clients. A woman Bianca helped rebuild and bring back to life and it was before she knew not to share so much of herself with the women she helped and they became inseparable. When it was time for Shannon to leave and Bianca knew she had nowhere to go, she offered her a job, and Shannon turned into her jack of all trades. Sometimes a nanny, sometimes a cook, and sometimes a protesting maid, she was always there for Bianca and she never failed to remark on the good and bad she saw in her life.

"I didn't get her name," said Bianca, pulling on her shirt then shaking her hair out as she looked at the other woman. "Does it matter?"

Clucking her tongue, Shannon pushed off the door and opened it for Bianca, saying over her shoulder, "Guessin' not."

Running her fingers through her hair as she walked into her bathroom, Bianca studied her reflection in the mirror before beginning her morning routine to ensure she looked as immaculate as possible for her children. Sometimes she wondered how her life got this way, it wasn't supposed to be like this, she was supposed to be married, hell, she was still married unless Reese had gotten a divorce or an annulment. It wasn't like Bianca was in contact with anyone back in the states to know for sure and she wasn't about to go searching to find out. There were days when she hated herself for becoming this way, for getting so disillusioned and hiding herself from her family and a woman she was certain that even if she didn't really love Bianca she did love their girls. Then she would recall those last horrible days in Pine Valley, her sister's cold declaration that Bianca betrayed her and Ryan's guilty and sympathetic expression as he told her about Zach and Reese then she knew what she did was for the best. Despite what Shannon thought she wasn't hurting the women she was with, she always told them the rules, that it was just sex and nothing more. No emotions and no attachments. It wasn't her fault if they tried to make it into something more.

Walking downstairs, she smiled brightly on seeing Gabrielle and Miranda sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Gabrielle was shoveling through her food at a comically fast rate while her older sister ate at a polite and leisurely pace. It always amused Bianca, how different her girls were, how Gabrielle preferred playing football in the mud with the neighborhood boys while Miranda would obsess with her girlfriends on what to do with their hair. Miranda begging her mother in the cutest ways for shopping trips, while Gabrielle avoided shopping like the plague unless it involved video games or something of that nature.

"Babies," Bianca drawled fondly, kissing Miranda then Gabrielle on the tops of their head and settling down in the empty seat that had a large plate filled with food and a glass of orange juice sitting in front of it.

"Mom," Miranda and Gabrielle replied, well used to this traditional and familiar greeting from their mother. Though Miranda, at the age of ten, had the increasingly adult and independent sense to roll her eyes at being called a baby, even if in affectionate terms by her mother.

"How much did you con out of Shannon and your sister?" asked Bianca, looking with dry humor at her youngest as she cut into her eggs.

"Two Double Deckers, a CurlyWurly, and three Maltesers," Gabrielle mumbled around a mouth full of food though she looked at her mother proudly. Clearly excited to have won such a large amount of candy in their card game. "It was grand. I stomped them."

"Apparently," said Bianca with a laugh. She looked to Miranda who had a mildly exasperated look on her face. "What do you say, did your little sister stomp you or was she just cheating again?"

"I'd wager she cheated but I haven't proof," said Miranda, eyeing Gabrielle almost wearily. "She's tricky."

"I don't cheat," said Gabrielle, waving her fork at Miranda. "I strategize."

"You don't even know what that means," Miranda laughed. "You've just heard them say it on the telly."

"So," Gabrielle defended huffily, shrugging her shoulders and biting into a sausage.

"What should we do today?" asked Bianca curiously. "Sunday is family day, remember, and it's girls choice."

Immediately on hearing this, Gabrielle and Miranda exchanged a look then said together, "Clara Lara!"

"The Funpark?" Bianca inquired, a smile in her voice and on her lips. "Sounds good to me. Do you want to bring a friend?" When both nodded their heads enthusiastically, she laughed. "Miranda, why don't you ring who you want to invite. I'll call for Gabby once you're done."

"I'm ringing Caitlin," announced Miranda happily, skipping off to the nearest phone.

"Don't jabber on for hours!" Gabrielle shouted after her, grumbling and well used to her older sister's lengthy talks on the phone. Turning to her mother, she said, "I want to go with Donovan."

"Of course you do," said Bianca with a smile, expecting the request from her youngest, knowing he was Gabrielle's closest friend. "Just be careful with him, all right? That cast just got off his arm from your last adventure."

"We didn't think he would fall," defended Gabrielle quietly, still disturbed by her friend's injury.

"I know, sweetie," Bianca reassured, standing up to kiss her daughter lightly on the head as Miranda skipped back into the room, saying that Caitlin's parents agreed to let her come along. "I'll call his mother now. I'm sure she'll agree to let him go with us." Heading into the living room she was met with the sight of Shannon sprawled out on the couch watching television. "This is how you plan on spending your day off?" asked Bianca ironically. "You should go out and have some fun. What about your date last week? How was it?"

"He was a gimp and a bit dodgy," said Shannon dismissively. "I'm not seein' him again."

"I think you're just picky," said Bianca, dialing the number for Donovan's house. "Nobody's ever good enough."

"You've spoiled me, love," replied Shannon cheekily, forming a lascivious smile.

Laughing at this, Bianca drawled, "I'd believe it if we'd ever had sex."

"Havin' heard tales of your talents, I'd believe it too," said Shannon in sardonic tones, focusing on the television. "I've also been witness to many a lady chasin' after you once they spent a night in your bed. Or wherever it is you take 'em since they're never here."

"I don't want them near the girls," said Bianca, instantly serious, a dark look in her eyes because it was the truth of the matter.

She wanted her sexual dalliances kept far from her daughters eyes, never touching the one good and pure thing she had left in her life. After the way things ended with Reese she made a deliberate decision not to fall in love again, to avoid romance, and to find her satisfaction in meaningless flings and she knew from all her training, from all her education in counseling and therapy, it wasn't healthy but she didn't care. It worked for her but knowing it wasn't right, that it was warped and twisted in a way, she wanted it nowhere near her girls. That's why she never failed to get angry when Shannon brought it up. Some topics weren't welcome in her home and this was one of them.

Instead of replying, Shannon shrugged and watched television while Bianca spoke with Donovan's father, arranging a time to pick the boy up so they could go to the Clara Lara Funpark together. As she did this, Bianca pushed the conversation with Shannon from her mind, forcing it down just like she did all her bitter memories and horrible moods, hiding them from her children, wanting them to know nothing of this side to their mother, and concentrating on the good she had with them, the joy they never failed to bring her.

They were all that mattered now.

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And that's all I've got so far! lol. Let me know if you like the angst and bitter Bianca who now has a habit of having one night stands. Well, I'm sure people will like the last part. It involves The Rack getting down and dirty, who doesn't like that? lol.

Comments

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as long as the Bianca and Reese exit is done in a way that I can see them possibly reconciling in the future I will post this fic and start writing it along with A Thousand Glimpses on a regular basis. Otherwise it's just another random idea I had that went nowhere.

I imagine the first one night stand Bianca had in Dublin wasn't something planned but once it happened it's like you said, she realized how much easier it made things. At that point she made a conscious decision to only have purely physical relationships with no commitment and deliberately kept the women she saw from her children. The latter to protect them from the hurt she saw happen to Miranda involving Maggie and Reese.

She doesn't really ever plan on returning to Pine Valley. Five years is a long time and it's the news her mother might be dying that causes her to return and even then, once she gets to PV she wants to run right back to Dublin where it's safe. It is an escape but not one she's really aware of.

Gabrielle has no concept of her mother's family or of Reese so she's not going to be too friendly since she sees how they upset her mother. I might even have her kick Reese or Kendall in the shins out of sheer ornery intent to protect Bianca.

I love the idea of making her an Irish accented tomboy. It's so cute to me. lol.

[murasaki1200.livejournal.com]

She doesn't really ever plan on returning to Pine Valley.
I can see that. This is a no plans for the future, she just wants to make a break from the mold. She ends up staying in Dublin because life is simpler there and there's a big part of Bianca who would like to escape her fate as the daughter of Erica Kane.


she's not going to be too friendly since she sees how they upset her mother. I might even have her kick Reese or Kendall in the shins out of sheer ornery intent to protect Bianca.

That is going to be too precious. It would be great to see how differently they react too. Reese is probably going to be overcome when her baby shows up all grown up and looking all mini-Bianca like and will react very differently than Kendall to that kick in the shins. That should give Gabby some food for thought. I can tell you're going to have to keep reminding yourself this fic is all about angst and bitterness, otherwise it could get too cute.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

Reese would react more kindly than Kendall to shin kicking given her love for the girls. I think I'll be able to keep it angsty considering all the cute moments happen with Miranda and Gabrielle. And it's only with them that Bianca acts like her old self.