Where Five Housewives Haven't Gone Before
i. Edie (Pirates of the Caribbean)
It should bug her more, watching Wisteria Lane be plundered, but then again, in all of the Caribbean, you weren't going to find richer and more self-satisfied plums for the picking.
And Jack Sparrow wasn't much for the rape and murder, which is more than Edie can say for several of the inhabitants of this fine street of this fine and smoky Caribbean city.
Besides, nothing is more fun than watching Susan recognize her and shrieking, "Edie! Mrs. Edie Britt! You bring back my things RIGHT NOW!"
Edie sweeps off her large hat that Jack gave her when he entrusted her with the daring dawn-time raid on Wisteria Lane, and bows to Mrs. Susan Mayer of Wisteria Lane, former matron who was responsible for her exclusion from polite society.
"We do what we must to survive," she says, imitating Jack's tones. "You did what you must for your salons and dinner parties. I do what I must to feed myself."
Two burly pirates rush up behind Edie. "What should we do with that baggage, mum?" one asks.
"Show her the mercy she showed me. Set her house afire," Edie says. "Apologize to her young daughter, who is to be Mrs. Young. Give her this."
She flips a doubloon to the other pirate who nods and pockets it. Susan starts to shriek as the crew of the Pearl takes out torches, and Edie smiles happily.
Piracy is much more fun and much less trouble than she thought it would be. Burn, pillage, and no corsets or annoying dinner parties to attend. Besides, the look on Susan Mayer's face when the two big guys put torches to her foundations is worth two chests of gold.
It's good to be the Pirate Bitch. So very good.
ii. Bree (Kill Bill)
Bree has changed, Lynette realizes, looking at the figure sitting on the bed of the best hotel in the city, smoking a cigarette.
It's not that Bree doesn't smoke. It's more that this is a non-smoking room.
Somehow, this change is easier to focus on than the feeling Lynette gets, tight and a little achey, from what Bree is wearing. Black leather pants. A green shirt that's not disguising anything, sleeves cut off and neatly resewn.
The boots are lace-up. Also comforting.
Except for the part where Bree is wearing leather pants, smoking a cigarette, and claims to be a paid contract killer these days.
"How are my children?" Bree asks, tilting her head back as the smoke swirls from her lips and her fingers dangle the cigarette dangerously close to the floor.
"How do you think?" Lynette answers, sitting down in the chair across from Bree. "Their father's dead and their mother's disappeared."
"That doesn't tell me anything," Bree says, opening one cat-like eye to pin Lynette with a gaze. "My children."
"Your kids are fucked up, Bree," Lynette says. "You should go see them. Talk to them. Phyllis is taking care of them for now, but Andrew is in the middle of emancipating himself and Danielle's failing all her classes."
Bree lets the cigarette drop and crushes it out with the heel of her boot, watching Lynette watch her do it with something that expresses itself on her face as amusement.
"And their lives will improve by discovering their mother kills people for a living? Certainly, Andrew would be impressed, but do you really think that Danielle would even believe me?" Bree asked.
"Bree, I don't believe you," Lynette says, trying to ignore the sick part of her stomach that absolutely does.
"Yes, you do," Bree replies idly.
"Yeah, I do," Lynette says. "And it scares the hell out of me, Bree."
"It wasn't so large of a change," Bree says dreamily. "I was already a crack shot. I know how to do things right the first time. My bosses call me Coup de Grace. I take head shots."
"And that was a little more graphic than I wanted to get," Lynette said, rubbing her arm.
Bree snorts, stands up, and walks over to Lynette. She puts one cool paw on each side of Lynette's face and lifts it to hers.
"Don't lie to me, Lynette," Bree says. "I'm telling you things I could die for. It's impolite not to return the favor."
The last thing Lynette thinks, before her lips are crushed against Bree's, is that maybe Bree hasn't changed that much...
She's gone when Lynette wakes up. It's like she was never here, except for a business card that is displayed attractively against the hotel's clearly Bree-re-arranged fruit basket.
Sofi Driver Business Agency is all it says. Lynette stares at it for a whole half-hour before the front desk rings and tells her she has to go.
iii. Gabrielle (Grey's Anatomy)
"You're pregnant?" Izzie asked, digging another spoonful of ice cream out of the carton of custom-packed sweet cream. "That's wild. I thought that you were child-free for life and all."
"I was. My idiot husband replaced my birth control with a placebo," Gabrielle replied, shaking her head. "I'm so glad you could come visit from Seattle. I still don't know why you decided to become a surgeon. You could still be at the top of your game in New York."
"And you're here in nowheresville, married to yet another corporate criminal," Izzie pointed out. "Nobody knows where they'll end up, and it's not like you loved being a model, either."
"I loved being a model," Gabrielle protested.
"Bullshit," Izzie said, offering Gabi a bite of the ice cream. Gratefully, Gabi took a long slurp of the yummy ice cream and sighed, patting her stomach. "You liked the sparkly money pretty, but if you really loved it, you'd be out of here."
Gabi sighed. "You're right," she said. "I fucked my teenaged gardener."
"I'm having sex with a giant dickwad because he's pretty," Izzie said. "And it's not even good sex."
"I don't know who my baby's father is," Gabrielle added, starting to laugh.
"I think I'm attracted to women," Izzie said. Gabi paused. "See, I can always bring the conversation to a dead halt."
"You're gay?" Gabi asked. "Is that why you left modeling? Too much temptation?"
Izzie snorted. "Gabrielle, I like you? But that was a dumb thing to say," she said. "Even for you, the master of dumb-sounding one-liners."
Gabrielle puffed out her chest...and laughed. "They're so fabulous, though," she said. "Everyone thinks I'm too stupid to walk and chew gum. It's a cunning disguise."
"Yeah, and it worked out so well for you," Izzie pointed out, looking around the Solis home. "How long is he in jail?"
"Few months," Gabi said. "I think I love him, Izzie. It's stupid, but I...hey, you have ice cream on the corner of your mouth."
"I do?" Izzie asked.
"Let me get it," Gabrielle said, leaning over and licking it off Izzie's face.
"Are you seriously trying to come on to me?" Izzie asked, pulling away and gaping at Gabrielle, who was trying to smile her sly and smug smile. "Is this your cunning disguise or are you just sure that anyone who would have sex with a woman wants to sleep with you?"
Gabrielle folded her arms around herself to enhance her cleavage. "Either. Both," she said. "What do you say?"
iv. Susan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
"I didn't want to tell you, okay?" Julie said angrily, storming away from her mother and the British stranger sitting on the couch. "I've already got enough to worry about, you know?"
"Don't walk away from me, young lady!" Susan yelled, but Julie was already halfway up the stairs. Fifteen seconds later, the door slammed so loudly that Mr. Giles' teacup rattled in its saucer. "I'm so sorry. She can be kind of..."
"Sixteen?" Giles inquired with a lifted eyebrow. "Please don't apologize, Ms. Mayer. As the primary Watcher of the new Council, I've since learned that teenaged whims must sometimes be ignored."
"You're in charge of how many teenagers again?" Susan asked, feeling like she should be more upset about this. After all, a stranger had come out of nowhere to inform her that her daughter had special powers, vampires were real, and the forces of evil did in fact sometimes meet in bowling alleys.
Sadly, Mr. Giles had informed Susan that it was absolutely impossible that Edie Britt was a vampire; however, he agreed to meet her to make sure she wasn't some lesser demon who could be killed equally dead.
"Several hundred young women, raging in age from eleven to twenty-five, are under my aegis," Giles said, putting the teacup down. He was far too polite to admit that the tea tasted of dishwater and possibly grease. "You seem remarkably calm about this turn of events, Ms. Mayer."
"Wisteria Lane is a great place to live, don't get me wrong," Susan said, shrugging. "But it's always been too perfect. Also, given what happened to Mary Alice, I'm willing to believe that her house is a Hellmouth. It explains the Scavo kids. And Bree's kids."
"Demons?"
"Republicans."
Giles nodded. "Well, we have hired an operative to keep an eye on Wisteria Lane while we're waiting to send a Watcher here," he said. "I believe you're already familiar with Mike Delfino?"
"Mike?" Susan asked, surprised to see her on-again off-again boyfriend walk in, his plumber's belt now containing stakes, holy water, and other vampire-slaying tools. "When were you going to tell me you sidelined in killing the undead?"
"Oh, god, SHUT UP MOM!" Julie shouted from upstairs. "I'm the Slayer, not you!"
Mr. Giles snorted. "I see there's prior history," he said. "If Mr. Delfino is unacceptable..."
Susan sighed. "It's fine," she said. "Maybe it's fate."
Spike snorted, and clicked the remote. The television went dead. He glared at Andrew, who cringed.
"You sold the idea to Marc Cherry? You bloody twat!" Spike snapped. "Desperate shagging Housewives?"
"It's the number two show in the US!" Andrew complained. "If it had been up to you, we'd be doing a Sci-Fi Scinema feature filmed in Canada, eh?"
"Shut up," Spike said. "Desperate sodding Housewives. I should beat you."
v. Lynette (Stargate: Atlantis)
"So, is Elvis still alive?" Lynette asked Rodney McKay after taking a tour of the bona fide Lost City of Atlantis. "Find Amelia Earhart down in the basement or anything?"
He didn't get it.
Lynette sighed. Her agency had been hired for a top-secret government advertising campaign, that could only be revealed when the top-secret project was ready to reveal itself.
Despite having four kids at home, the boss had sent her. Because it was a vacation, and after all, single people might want to have a CSI marathon and why is that less of a valid choice than Lynette's?
Lynette was actually quite proud of herself. Top Secret Clearance, a week vacation from Tom and the kids, AND she had persuaded her boss she didn't want to go to the Lost City of Atlantis. Because of course, a CSI marathon was much more fulfilling than getting to go through a interdimensional portal to discover the most interesting location in a different galaxy and figure out an ad campaign that could just be "Hey! New Galaxy!" and still win a million awards.
It wouldn't hurt that Lynette was getting idea after idea for ad campaigns that would make her name for decades? But Lynette respected her superior's life choices.
Besides, she was on Atlantis. In a different galaxy. How could she not be willing to come?
The boys were going to love this. Dr. Weir had agreed that they could come aboard the station during Lynette's next visit, and she'd love to meet them. Maybe this would inspire them to take school a little more seriously. Maybe someday they could be the ones crossing galaxies like Caldwell and Lt. Colonel Sheppard.
Or they could end up Dr. McKays.
"Does this place make your nose run a little? I find that it's a little oppressive. The change in pressure, the humidity -- you should think about that when you bring your children. Extra inhalers, if they need them," McKay said, babbling along. "You're aware of the Wraith threat, of course."
"Aware and pretty sure the Wraith would run from my boys," Lynette said dryly. She put her hand up when it was clear that McKay had missed the humor again. "Joke. Joke. Parental-style joke."
"Oh. Right, funny," McKay said, laughing.
"You're not uncomfortable with kids, are you?" Lynette asked, smiling benignly. It was wrong, of course, but the idea of sending the twins after Dr. McKay to ask about about ZPMs and zero point energy right after lunch?
Oh, so very, very right. It could inspire them. It might help teach Dr. McKay about the need for patience! And Lynette was all about showing others about learning patience with young children.
Hopefully, they wouldn't fry him in an energy field. She'd have to tag along. But there were risks to being on Atlantis.
After all, Lynette knew that. She'd signed the disclosure form.