Wow, four months since my last story update! Sorry, everyone. Been busy with work and life, but also lacking in inspiration lately. I've had four story ideas that I wanted to move forward with, but just didn't know how to proceed. Luckily, one of these stories is now checked off my to-do list! The idea of a sweet mother-daughter fic between Tracy and Penny has been itching to get written; not sure if I got the teen angst down pat (it's been so long since I was a teenager) but I hope you all enjoy. (Wanted to get it up by Mother's Day but, gah, not quite... Four weeks later is commendable, I think!)

"Wish I could turn back time

To the good ol' days

When our mama sang us to sleep

But now we're stressed out."

- "Stressed Out", Twenty One Pilots

2030

Penny slammed the door as she entered the house, startling her 13-year-old brother as he sat on the couch, fiddling with his iPhone.

"Where are mom and dad?" she demanded as she kicked off her boots and shrugged off her coat, tossing it to the ground. She was just too upset to even hang it on the rack.

Luke shrugged his shoulders. "Not home yet," he told her, looking at her as if she had two heads before turning his attention back to his phone screen.

"Ugh!" she cried, exasperated, stomping her feet as she climbed up the stairs.

It's not as if she wanted to tell them what was going on. It was too weird talking about her love life to them, especially with her dad. But she wanted to talk to... someone. Anyone. Vent. Let it out. Normally it would be with her best friend Jasmine; but she was the one Penny caught making out with her boyfriend Tom after school, so that was clearly out of the question.

Penny entered her bedroom, dropping her backpack to the floor and flinging herself onto her bed, finally letting out the tears she had amazingly held in during the entire bus ride home. Fucking Jasmine, she thought, punching a throw pillow with her fist. Fucking Tom.

They hadn't been dating long; just since the start of the school year, so a little over two months. But Penny liked Tom. A lot. He was cute, smart, sporty, confident and funny; how could she not? She even thought she was maybe falling in love with him. The feelings were intense, feelings Penny had never quite felt before; she was even contemplating maybe having sex with him. She had weighed the pros and cons down on paper, and all signs pointed to her sleeping with him eventually.

"That sure as hell won't happen now," she mumbled into her pillow.

Penny knew Tom probably wasn't going to be the guy she'd eventually marry; she was only 15, after all, and he was her first ever boyfriend. But as she looked at her Uncle Marshall and Aunt Lily, together since they were 18, and she thought, well, maybe he could be the one...

She suddenly heard the front door open and shut downstairs, the sounds of her parents laughing and greeting her brother echoing all the way up the stairs. Dad taught classes at Columbia a few days a week, so he and mom always took the train into the city together and back. It was sickeningly cute, but Penny would never admit it; although right then, she was just annoyed with her parents. After all, it was through them that the concept of "the one" got ingrained into her brain. And look at where that got her.

She kind of hated them right now.

"Penny!" her dad called from downstairs. "Come down and help us start on the pizzas!"

Friday night pizza night, Penny realized with a groan. It was the last thing she wanted to partake in at that moment. But to keep her dad from coming up to her room and seeing her this way, she crawled out of bed, wiped at her eyes to hide any evidence that she had been crying, and went downstairs.

She only hoped she could hold it together.

I can't hold it together! Penny cried inwardly, glumly swirling tomato sauce onto the pizza dough her dad had stretched out.

The rest of the family was having a blast. Mom was mixing the dough and handing it off to dad to roll out, the two of them dorkily singing "That's Amore" as they worked. Luke wasn't singing, but as Penny handed him the sauced dough to cover with toppings, he rolled his eyes good-naturedly and smiled. He was always more appreciative of their parents' eccentricities and quirks than she was.

Penny remained sullen all throughout dinner, as they each ate their personal-sized pizzas. She dodged her parents' questions about her day, avoiding her mother's gaze as she looked at her curiously, concerned.

Unfortunately, she couldn't escape back to her room quite yet, as family night wouldn't be complete without a movie. What was even worse, was that she was forced to sit through a romantic comedy. She was certainly not in the mood to watch Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love at first sight tonight; not when love was eluding her right then.

"C'mon, Penny," her mom encouraged her, wrapping an arm around her. Penny didn't want her mother's embrace right then, yet oddly yearned for it too. "It's your favorite movie!"

"No!" she spat out, lying, shrugging Tracy's arm off of her. "It's dad's favorite movie! He gets a hard on every time they show a glimpse of the Empire State Building."

Ted nearly choked on the popcorn he had been shovelling into his mouth. "Penelope Lane!" he sputtered, embarassed but angry.

"Penny, only I'm allowed to comment on your father's sexual attraction to the Empire State Building," Tracy said. Her tone may have been playful, but Penny saw the look in her eyes, no longer wide and happy but narrowed and menacing. It was a look that pretty much said, Watch it, young lady.

Penny was admittedly slightly scared. But her sadness and anger over Tom trumped her fear of her mother's wrath right then.

Luke, for his part, just watched their whole exchange in great amusement.

"Whatever," Penny grumbled. She had had a crappy day; her mother's threatening glare didn't scare her. If she got grounded for talking back, well, it would be a relief right then. She wanted to be in her room anyway.

"That's it, go upstairs!" her father growled, his face red. He was officially angry at her attitude and sass.

"Gladly!" Penny cried, in full angry teenager mode now. She climbed off the couch and stomped up the stairs to her room, slamming her door as hard as she could.

Penny wasn't sure how much time had passed, how long she had been crying. Maybe 10 minutes... maybe an hour? Her throat was dry from all the tears, and she could really use a glass of water at that moment. But she had no interest in going downstairs and crossing paths with her parents.

God, her chest hurt. Was this what heartbreak felt like?

Penny, weirdly, always wanted to get her heart broken; she thought both the good and bad parts of love were what life was all about. She wanted to encounter every single type of emotion, go through every type of life experience. How emo of me...

But as she now finally experienced a breakup for the first time, Penny decided that she really could do without this feeling; why did grown-ups put themselves through relationships time and again like this? Why even bother trying with love and relationships? It clearly wasn't worth it.

There was a soft knock at her door, Penny lifting her head up from her pillow to acknowledge whoever it was.

"Leave me alone," she called out.

Her door was gently pushed open, her mother peeking her head into the room. "I'll take that as your way of saying 'come in'," Tracy said, stepping inside and shutting the door behind her. Of course her mother wouldn't respect her boundaries. "So, are you ready to talk about what's bothering you?"

Her tone had a sternness to it—Penny was clearly in trouble for talking to her parents like she had—but her mom did look and sound like she wanted to know, to help. And Penny really wanted to talk to someone; her mother was good with the pep talks and comforting words. It was something Penny missed.

So she slowly nodded her head, and let her mother scoot into the single bed with her. Her curled-up lap was immediately inviting, Penny quickly laying her head down, her eyes welling up again, taking comfort in the soothing touch of her mom's fingers now in her hair.

"Tom and I broke up, mom," Penny revealed, the floodgates opening. Actually saying it out loud like that made it sound so official, which hurt all the more.

"Aw, honey," Tracy said, sympathetically, still softly running her hand in her hair. "That's rough. I'm very sorry to hear that."

Mom was cool that way, Penny thought. She could've told her to just get over it, that she was young, and that it wasn't real love anyway. But she never minimized her feelings. Penny always appreciated that, especially now.

"Guys suck, mom," Penny said with a sigh, defeated.

"Not all guys," her mother assured her, kissing the top of her head. "I promise you that."

"I don't believe you," Penny scoffed. "I mean, even dad told us all these stories about the shitty stuff he and Uncle Barney did to women before he met you. He was just like the rest of them."

"One, don't speak like that about your father," she said warningly, always her dad's biggest defender. "I know you're trying to make a point, but it shouldn't come at your dad's expense. Two, language. And three, people do stupid things when they're young. It doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people; they just haven't grown up yet. Things will get better when you get older, you'll see."

"If that's the case, I might as well wait until I'm 35 to date again," Penny grumbled. "Then I won't have to deal with all these immature, loser guys."

Tracy chuckled. "While I'm sure your father would be ecstatic to hear that, I don't want you to miss on any opportunities while you're young, honey. Falling in and out of love, making mistakes... It's what growing up is all about. It's not often fun, and it certainly isn't easy; but nothing in life should come easy. Then it wouldn't be worth it."

Penny sighed; she figured her mother was right. She recalled her dad sitting her and Luke down one long weekend last spring while mom was out of town on business, telling them one long and convoluted story about how he met mom. (Really, Penny figured it was just a reason for dad to tell them more boring and TMI stories while mom wasn't around to save them.) But the point of all his anecdotes from his youth was pretty much along the same lines as Tracy just said: that if he hadn't gone through so much crap in his life—getting left at the altar, losing his job, going through a number of breakups—he never would've met their mom.

Even mom, after losing her first boyfriend in a car accident, had later told them that despite the years it took to get over that incident, it had made her stronger, had made her who she was. And, frankly, she would have never met dad had she not experienced that loss.

"I guess..." Penny said uncertainly.

She knew going through the ups and downs of life is what it's all about—it's what being an adult was all about. And Penny'd been fighting so hard for her parents (and for the world) to see her as a young adult, and not as a little girl.

But, man, being a kid was so much more simpler...

Blanket forts on the living room. Sunday afternoon baking, where mom would equally divide the remaining raw batter into separate bowls so that Penny and Luke wouldn't fight. Dozing on mom's lap in the backyard, when the sun was setting and the grownups we're still wide awake and chatting, their voices sounding so faraway and muffled. The four of them huddled together in the large bed on rainy, thunderous nights, dad reading out loud to all of them by flashlight.

And then there was bedtime, where Luke would giddily bounce onto Penny's bed, the two of them huddled close while mom sung "La Vie en Rose" sitting at the edge of the bed, while dad stood by the doorway, equally entranced. It was their family ritual. That feeling of being soothed and safe, it's what Penny was longing for right then.

"Mommy?" she asked, feeling a bit silly using the moniker she hadn't used in so long, her voice sounding childlike, too.

"Hmm?" her mother responded softly, the tone in her voice curious.

"Can you sing to me?"

Her mom pulled away, and looked down at Penny. She looked surprised and tried to play it cool, but she was evidently pleased at the request. "Really?"

Penny nodded.

"Are you sure? Because I thought you were too old to be sung to sleep," Tracy pointed out.

"Mom," Penny groaned.

"Because I distinctly remember you telling me this when you were 12 years old," she went on. "I mean, it was the night my heart broke into a million tiny pieces, after all."

She rolled her eyes. "Ok, fine, forget it," starting to shift her body off of Tracy's lap.

"No, no, no, I'll sing!" she insisted quickly, eagerly, pressing Penny's head back down onto her lap."Ted!" she hollered in excitement.

There was a brief pause before her dad answered from right outside her bedroom door. "Um, yeah?"

Penny sighed. Of course he had been eavesdropping.

"Can you bring me my ukulele, Pooh Bear?"

"Sure."

He disappeared for a few moments and returned with the ukelele, Penny already feeling a sense of warmth at the sight of the old instrument. It really had been a long time since she last saw her mother play it, last heard her mother's voice sing her to sleep.

She recalled that moment, being 12 and about to begin middle school. She had already started to get rid of all the kid stuff from her room, her toys and dolls, and started to pin posters on the wall from her teen magazines. And in her quest to disassociate herself from everything childish, she had decided that her mother singing lullabies at night had to go, as well.

And as she watched her father now hand the ukelele to her mom, who started to tune it and pluck at the strings, Penny realized that she wasn't too old for this. On the contrary, she still needed her mother's soothing voice, more than ever.

Her dad briefly hung around, clearly wanting to possibly sneak in a listen. But this was for Penny—just for her and her mommy, dammit!—so she was slightly annoyed at him. But mom knew, and she gave her husband a knowing look.

Thankfully, dad got the hint. He slowly nodded, gently stroked Penny's cheek and kissed his wife's forehead. (He often rivalled mom with his tenderness and concern.) He then stepped out of her room, shutting the door behind him, leaving them alone.

"Ok, time for your goodnight song, huh?" Tracy said, in that same tone she used to when Penny was a child. This song used to be the only way Penny would go to sleep when she was a baby and a toddler, and often the only way she would be soothed, after she scraped a knee or lost a beloved toy.

And in this instance, after a boy broke her heart.

Her mother softly began to sing, the song Penny had not heard in forever, but whose lyrics were still ingrained in her brain.

"Hold me close and hold me fast, the magic spell you cast, this is la vie en rose. When you kiss me heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose."

Penny whispered softly along, but not too loud, as she wanted to hear her mother sing; maybe she was biased, but her mother really had the most beautiful singing voice in the world.

"When you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, a world where roses bloom. And when you speak angels sing from above, everyday words seem to turn into love songs."

She thought about Tom. The way he would hold her, the way he would kiss her. Especially the way he would speak to her, look at her. For the past two months, it was as if she was the only person in the world to him. The words he spoke, they were eloquent and practically poetic. He definitely knew how to woo her, enchant her.

Maybe it was all lies. Maybe he had meant them, and he just fell out of love with her. But he had made her feel good, made her feel alive. Even though it wasn't for too long, it was a fleeting yet wonderful feeling. So Penny tried to hold onto that, hoping she'd feel like that again someday.

But now, she just took comfort in her mom's words and her touch instead. A different kind of love, but one no less comforting and loving.

"Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be la vie en rose."

Her mom was done, and a Penny could feel her mom move a bit, the sound of the ukelele gently being placed on the nightstand.

"You feeling better?" her mom asked, looking down at her, sweeping her bangs from her forehead.

Penny just looked up at her—at her concerned, optimistic, loving eyes—and nodded sleepily, 100% calm and relaxed for the first time all day. She yawned; one of those long and satisfying yawns that meant she'd be knocked out in just a few short moments.

Tom and Jasmine just felt like a million miles away right then. Tomorrow, it would hit her like a Mac truck again; but for now, she was at peace.

"Everything will feel better in time, Lucky Penny," her mother whispered as she climbed off the bed, and then pulled the blanket over her tired body. She gave her cheek one last tender stroke. "I promise."

And as Penny's lids fluttered shut, her mother's smiling face the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes, she truly believed her.

END