BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

AN: I'm not sure how this story will be received. Without giving too much away, I'll call this an AU 'second chance' fic. I want to say a special thank-you to lookingforthestars who reminded me why we actually write stories and encouraged me to try this idea out. Reviews are addictive to us fragile writers and let us know you're interested in more.

oxoxoxoxoxoxo

They both had impeccable timing.

Her children must've developed a built-in radar system when they'd moved out. Or else they'd installed cameras which was a disturbing notion she wouldn't necessarily put past either of them.

Because it never failed. Her grown kids always managed to call when she was just about to step into the shower. Her husband used to tell her to leave her cell in the other room or turn it off, but the mother in her could never bear to be out of reach. What if there was an emergency? What if they needed her?

Paige picked her phone up off the counter and checked the caller ID even though the ringtone already told her who it was. Sure enough, it was Avery.

Sighing, she shut the water off and plopped down naked on the closed lid of the toilet. She shivered a little as the steam began to dissipate.

"Hey, Sweetie!" Paige answered in a bright, warm voice hoping it didn't echo off the tiles too obviously, "How was your first day of graduate school?" Watching the mist slowly recede from the full length mirror across the room, it suddenly occurred to her she didn't really want to see her unclad reflection. She stood and pulled her bathrobe off the hook on back of the door. It wasn't that she was bad looking for a fifty-four year old woman. She kept in shape, but some of her curves sagged a bit southward now and stretch marks bisected the cesarean scar on her once taut belly. She sometimes missed her thirty year old physique. She still felt the same and she wasn't in the mood to see proof she wasn't.

Shouldering the phone while she shrugged on the garment and wandered into the master bedroom, she perched on the edge of the bed waiting for her daughter to reply.

"It sucked," Avery grumbled, "Hard."

"Uh, oh. What happened?" Instantly concern replaced the mild irritation caused by the interruption of her nightly routine. Her twenty year old daughter was usually upbeat and positive. That didn't stop her from occasionally being a little on the dramatic side, however.

"Ralph is a dead man the next time I see him. You may want to warn him to change his name and leave town or something."

Paige chuckled at that. Ralph was Avery's favorite person in the whole world. Often to his extreme annoyance. When she was little, she'd followed him everywhere he went like his personal version of an imprinted duckling.

"I mean it, Mom. He's number one on my hit list today. He's the one that insisted I go to his lame ass alma mater!"

"Language, Honey," she responded automatically before coaxing, "Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me about it?" Paige crossed her legs at the knee, her tatty, terry robe parting and sliding off to each side of her lap. She picked at the pills in the nap of the fabric left over from countless washings while her daughter drew breath to explain. From the tone of this conversation, she knew it was going to be a while before she could get back to her shower.

"Ugh. To start with, my faculty advisor essentially told me my idea for a thesis wouldn't fly. I worked on that fuc… Sorry. Stupid concept all summer long! I have no idea what to write about now. And she was no help, like, at all! Then, because my application was pulled off the waiting list and accepted late, I didn't get all the classes or professors I wanted either. I got stuck in one class where I'm pretty sure the prof is certifiably insane. As in a total head case. Guess which one?! That's right. Abnormal Psychology. I think they pulled in a guy with practical, in-the-field experience if you know what I mean. I have another one I didn't understand half of what she said. It made absolutely no sense. What so ever. It was like trying to audit a class in India and not knowing a word of Sanskrit."

"Look on the bright side, if that professor is certifiable, maybe he could be the subject of your new thesis? Like a case study?" Paige's mouth quirked up at one corner.

"Hilarious, Mom. Yep. I'm dying here and you gotta make jokes."

"Sorry. But it couldn't be all bad, could it? There has to be something that went right today? What about your internship? How did it go?"

Silence.

"Avery?"

"I have no words for that guy. Okay, maybe one word. A freakin' waking nightmare. Well, three words, I guess. If we're gonna be strictly technical. Which he is. Total robot. One of these days I'm going to walk in and find him plugged into the wall charging his battery, I swear. That's if I can force myself to go back tomorrow. You should have heard him, Mom! I was a little late, right? Like two maybe three minutes, max…"

Paige rolled her eyes because her baby girl could easily get totally absorbed in some activity or other and lose a whole night's sleep. When Avery got wrapped up, she had no concept of time. In the interest of peace, she kept her response to a non-committal hum. She knew at this particular moment her daughter needed an ear to rant in more than she needed yet another lecture on how everyone else's time was as important as hers.

"His lab is all the way the…heck across campus from my other classes. So I had to sprint anyway. Another compelling reason I seriously need a Segway for Christmas, bee tee dubs. If I survive til Winter Break, that is. I couldn't find where to go for the longest. I think it's unplottable like Hogwarts or something. I asked a few students and none of them knew. I finally found a campus cop and when I asked where it's located, he looked at me like I'd asked where Voldemort and the Death Eaters hang out. He literally asked me why I'd want to find that particular lab. Then he mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'arrogant bastard'. His words, not mine. But he was SO right, Mom. I got there and my 'boss', and when I say boss, I really mean master like I'm Igor or something. His Highness didn't greet me or anything. He led with, 'You're late' and ended with 'Start cleaning up over there'. That was the sum total of our entire conversation. Except when he got impatient with me for moving a stack of scribbled-on paper stressing how someone average like me can't understand the importance of his almighty project. Oh and when he informed me that psychology isn't actual science. Jerk. I don't care how high his IQ is or how many honorary doctorates he holds. And you should see this guy, Mom. Wrinkled clothes looking like he's slept in them. For a couple of months at least. Wild, curly hair busting out all over his head. Identical to every picture of a mad scientist you've ever seen. His lab is disgusting and apparently I'm not helping with research at all. I'm just the maid. Uh, gross. Moldy, wrinkled apple cores and half filled coffee mugs with an inch of scum on top. I swear I had to sandblast a few of them out. Gah! I wish I could walk. I wanna quit so bad."

"Avery, you know we can't afford graduate level tuition and your scholarship is only a partial one. Can you maybe ask for another assignment?" Paige suggested gently. She hated to bring up finances. She was doing all she could to help, but Avery's undergrad degree nearly blew through all of her savings even though her daughter worked and contributed as much as possible. And even though her bright girl had finished in just under three years. It was simply a fact. Avery needed a paid internship.

The girl scoffed, "What other assignment? Go back and focus on the part where I was pulled off the waiting list late. There isn't anything left. The only reason I got this one was because no one else wanted it and because of Ralph. He's a legend around here and he knows this creeper somehow."

"Maybe his bark is worse than his bite? If you do a good job, he might let you assist with his actual work. You know, kill him with kindness?"

"I guess," came the disgruntled reply. Then after a pause she added, "I'm seriously going to kill your son. And not with kindness."

There was another slight pause while Paige digested everything Avery told her. Then it finally occurred to her to ask, "You say Ralph knows this guy? Who is he?"

"He's the whole reason there are professional counselors on campus for the students, that's who."

Paige snorted softly at her child's comment. "What's his name, Sweetie?"

"Doctor O'Brien. As in Doctor 'Walter the Wicked Warlock' O'Brien."

The phone clattered to the floor from Paige's nerveless fingers as she barely heard her daughter's distant voice calling, "Mom? Mom? Are you still there?"