Nichole looks down at Takara and smirks a little. She definitely resembled Kaya Rose or Sylvie a lot. "She's beautiful, Erica. I'd say she took after you if there were a way for that to be possible." She winks and giggles, touching Takara's cheek softly. "I should have brought my kids. They would have loved to meet their half-sibling."

"Don't say that," Nichole immediately snaps at Erica when she hears her so bitterly say that she hopes Takara is nothing like herself. She didn't mean to sound angry, but she couldn't handle Erica thinking so lowly of herself, especially when Nichole thought so highly of her. "I'll bring them next time. Promise. They're at Sam's mother's house right now."

"You're wonderful, Eri Berry," Nichole says back with a smile as she looks back at Takara and smiles even wider. "Oh, speaking of houses, I never got to give you your Christmas present!" She grabs her cell phone out of the small pocket in the front of her dress and scrolls through the photos until she finds the one of the apartment she bought for them. "It's in Prague. In the Czech Republic. It's so beautiful there, Eri. It's perfect. You know, if you ever wanted to get away from Japan."

Nichole laughs. "No, the apartment's for both of us. I originally set it up for a place for us to get away, but... I mean, now I guess it can just be for... us in general..." She giggles, trying to find the right way to word all of this without sounding heartless. "You know, Takara and my kids can be there, too... It'd be our house. For new beginnings."

OOC: Pukwudgies, damnit, and they're scary as fuck.

"Of course I still want to," Nichole says back with a smirk, as if it were obvious that she still wanted to live with Erica. "If I wanted to then, why would I suddenly not want to now?" She shakes her head when Erica says that they have a lot more in common now. She wanted to say, 'We've never had anything in common, Erica. That's why I've found you so attractive all this time,' but instead what came out was, "What do you mean?"

"Well... then I won't leave," Nichole figures with a shrug. That seemed like the simplest method to her. If Erica is going to go back to being depressed if she leaves, then she won't. "What do you mean I know what you're capable of? What're you talking about?" Nichole shakes her head when Erica tries to compare their situations to each other. She sits down next to her. "The two situations aren't the same, and you know that," she says simply, looking at Takara, who was starting to look more and more like Sam as she stared. "The only thing that's the same is that we're both single through no choice of our own."

Nichole smiles a little and looks around Mariko's house from the futon. "Not that I don't love it here, but I wouldn't mind going to Prague soon so you can see our apartment..." She comments quietly. Japan kind of gave her the creeps now. She felt like at any time, some crazy person could come busting through the door, wanting her eyes. She listens to Erica as she speaks, laughing quietly to herself. "I guess the way I saw it was this: You never cheated on her with anybody else but me. In fact, you were fiercely loyal to her... besides with me. I just expect that it'd be the same way, except for now you have me, so there's nobody for you to cheat on me with... you get what I mean?" She raises her ornate eyebrow. Maybe she was pushing this too far. She had no idea what kind of relationship Erica wanted with her anyway. Nichole was so caught up in the idea of being with somebody again that she never stopped to ask what Erica wanted. "I know," Nichole says quietly, a twinge of guilt going through her. She didn't mean to sound so bitter and mean towards Erica, but the comparison was just too much. Her Sam wasn't dead. He was just gone forever. Maybe.

Nichole twists her mouth, thinking. She flew with her children all the time, but they weren't newborns anymore. "I don't know. I'd hate to say, 'No, it's fine!' and then it... not be. I think the general fear is that a newborn's immune system won't be strong enough, and it'll get sick if you go on a crowded airplane with it. But if we... I don't know, get a private plane..." She laughs a little. She had been famous for some time now, but it was still hard to think about throwing around money on things like private planes. Nichole thinks about what Erica asks her for a few seconds, looking down at her feet as she thought. Finally she looks back up at Erica and lets out a small laugh. "I have this weird thing about me where I think that people just understand me automatically. You know what I mean? I think that when I do things, people will just understand the reason why without me having to explain it to them. But they don't, and I've never fully realized that." She pauses, her eyes returning to the floor. "I was so angry at you for the longest time for not realizing that I married Sam to make you jealous. How insane is that? I thought that I would marry him, and you would be so overcome with regret that you would run away from Natalya and want to be with me again. But I was pregnant, and... I don't know, Erica. For a little over a year now, I've accepted and even encouraged the fact that I'm considered this 'musical oddity;' this weird woman who makes weird music, but is somehow socially accepted by the whole world. And I just wanted something normal in my life. I wanted to have a husband and a family and a two-story house and a Golden Retriever named Scout who wears American flag bandannas, and I wanted something that... something that reminded me of my parents, I guess. I mean, they're awful, but they're awful together. They've been married for thirty years, and I've never seen them fight. And they have the most boring life. There has to be something to that." She sighs, looking back down at her feet again. "But I'm not my parents. I'm on some whole other path that doesn't involve... normality or nuclear families. And I deny myself the right to go down that path for almost a year. I just held myself back and said, 'You'll be happier with this. In the long run, you'll be happier. You just have to suffer now.' But I'm so done suffering, Erica. I'm so done pretending like Sam is perfect for me, and you'd be wrong for me. Because it's the whole other way around. Sam was... amazing and gentle and sweet, and I love him still. But you're who makes me happy. And I'm done denying myself happiness."

OOC: Sorry about that monologue.

Nichole smirks. "Yeah, Prussian. That's what they'll think we are. Prussian." She laughs at the idea of the pilot referring to her as Short Round, and makes a mental note to do so while they were on the plane. If the pilot doesn't do it, Nichole will. "It's not your fault. Obviously it's not your fault. I expected you to be able to read minds. Of course you can't." She giggles and nods, agreeing with the life that Erica set out for them. "A cat, too. I want a cat. Sam wouldn't let me get one, but I want one." She wraps her arms around Erica, kissing her cheek lightly. In the pit of her stomach, she felt like an awful person. She wanted to tell everybody that her and Erica were together and were planning this life together, but on the other hand... Erica's wife was murdered less than a week ago. She wondered if they were horrible people. "I love you, too, Eri Berry."

Nichole laughs, shaking her head. "Bitch, I was in third fucking place. I was so close, and I hadn't even released an album yet, and I was kicking ass. I'm convinced that if Chris and Billy didn't have so much sexual tension between them, I would have won. Or at least come in second place. Ugh." She thinks back to those times in the Big Brother house. She had fucked practically the entire male cast, with one or two exceptions. That was Sex House. She crosses her arms and shakes her head. She was still a little bitter over her time in Big Brother. Erica speaking about how terrible they are makes Nichole feel even worse about what they were doing. Sure, maybe now they don't have to answer for anything that they're doing, but the general public will make sure they do. There's no way you can get away with doing something like this and not get a few evil glares. Nichole was used to that. She had never been a family-friendly sort of artist. But Erica was America's Japanese Sweetheart. Nichole felt bad about being the reason that was going to be taken away. And no matter how much Erica promised, Nichole knew that she was constantly going to be compared - or would be comparing herself to - Natalya. She shakes her head. She felt like the secretary that the boss was having an affair with. No matter how much you convince yourself that they love you, they still love their wife as well. "Would you have ever left Natalya for me?" She asks point-blank, not wanting to hold that in anymore.