Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was four o’clock on a Friday afternoon at the Rear Window Brew, and the line for coffee stretched out the door. But Emily Fields knew how to be patient. The optimism in her not fading a notch, she glanced at her watch and braced herself for the wait ahead. There was nothing to worry about. She had time.

“These goddamn high schoolers.” Apparently, the person who joined the line behind her didn’t feel the same way.

Emily turned around to face the muttering woman. “You okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine.” The woman was thin with long, wavy brown hair, olive skin and a furrowed brow - which she would be more attractive without. “Sorry. I just haven’t had coffee all day. Can’t believe how hard it is to find a brew that doesn’t taste like sludge around here.”

“As you can tell,” Emily gestured at the slowly moving line in front of her, “the Brew is the place to be.”

The woman folded her arms. “I don’t remember people needing coffee at this age.”

“Probably because you thought you were the only seventeen-year-old who drank coffee after a long day of Honors Chemistry,” Emily said. She thought that the brunette seemed the type, but immediately felt silly for making assumptions.

The woman huffed.

Clearly Emily hit a nerve. This came as a reassurance. “Was I right?” she teased, carefully watching the other woman’s expression. It soured even further. “Tell you what,” she said. “You tell me what you want to drink and I’ll put our orders together, to make it more efficient for the baristas.” On a whim, she added, “It’ll be my treat.”

“How can I hold you to that?” the woman asked.

“I know not to trick women. My mother raised me right,” Emily responded. She held her hand out. “I’m Emily, by the way.”

Eyebrow raised, the woman surveyed her hand before shaking it tentatively. “Spencer,” she said. “My name’s Spencer.”

They settled in a secluded nook unoccupied behind some curtains after receiving their coffees. Spencer did everything but guzzle her triple shot long black, to which she added three packets of cream and two teaspoons of sugar, while Emily sipped her Americano - what a pedestrian choice! - and watched her amusedly.

It had been an hour since they first sat there yet their conversation seemed endless. Spencer found out that they were the same age, thirty-four years old. She also found out that Emily was a contractor who owned a renovation business with a friend in New York. She was in Rosewood for business, to meet a potential client. In turn, Spencer told Emily about her undergrad education at UPenn, and her plans to go to law school, but instead was pulled to another direction.

“I’m a writer,” Spencer told her. Although she was accustomed to saying it by now, it felt phony when she told Emily. Perhaps it was because she knew that Emily’s career produced concrete results, while most of what Spencer does never even makes it to the public eye. When the other woman gave her a questioning look, she supplemented with, “I live in Los Angeles.”

“Oh, cool!” Emily said. “What do you write for…?”

“Television.” She looked down at her hands. “The pilot of a show I’ve been working on is actually going to air on CBS in June. I’m the head writer for it.”

“That’s great! What’s it about?”

“Well.” Spencer was really not used to anyone showing interest in her work, at all. Hollywood had given her thick skin. “It’s called Ocean of You, and it’s mostly a romance-drama type show centered around a relationship between two young professionals in San Francisco. It’s much less melodramatic than a soap, but far less formulaic than a standard TV drama.”

“Ocean of You? Got something to do with the Bay Area?” Emily asked.

“The location is something I thought of with the producers when I was revising the pilot script, but the title is a lyric from a song called ‘Sway’ by Bic Runga. She’s a singer from New Zealand,” Spencer explained. “It played on the radio one day and I found it so catchy, I had to listen to it again…”

“Then you got inspired.”

“Then I got inspired.”

Emily leaned back in her seat. “You don’t strike me as the sappy type.”

“It’s not sappy!” Spencer retorted. She intended it to be a different kind of love story. Besides, she could get away with being sappy because Ocean of You was unique. She told the black-haired woman sitting across from her just that.

“How is it different?”

“It’s a queer love story.” Anxious for Emily’s reaction, the words rushed out of Spencer’s mouth.

“What?”

Spencer sighed. “The two protagonists are women,” she said. “They fall in love.”

“Why ‘queer’?” Emily frowned. “Why not ‘lesbian’, or even ‘gay’?”

“Because,” Spencer sat up, ramrod straight with righteousness, “queer is better at encompassing non-heterosexual identities. Not every woman who falls in love with a woman is a lesbian. For all you know, they could be bi.”

“All right, all right.” The taller woman’s hands were raised in defeat. “No need to get all grouchy at me. I’m sold now. I’ll watch your show.”

“What do you mean that you’re sold now?” Spencer asked.

“It’s okay that they’re sappy because they’re both ladies,” Emily said. “So I’ll watch it.”

And was Spencer supposed to be grateful? “Now you’re just typecasting.”

“No, I’m speaking from personal experience,” Emily said. “That’s why I avoid getting attracted to sappy women. But they’re a dime a dozen. So let’s just say that I’m a little bit picky.” There was an odd undertone to her voice. As if underneath the confidence, she only half-believed what she was saying.

“I’m not sure sappy women would think you were worth their time after they got to talk to you anyway.” Spencer’s eyes wandered over the other woman. Emily was gorgeous, with shiny black hair tumbling down her broad shoulders, high cheekbones and full lips. Her muscled arms and legs were evident even under the long-sleeved tee and jeans that she was wearing. But her eyes were special. There was a hardness to them, no doubt, but also something else. Spencer couldn’t tell what it was.

“Sure.” Emily nodded. “So why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m worth your time.”

Emily was not usually fond of engaging in banter with women; it wasn’t her style. In the first place, she wasn’t even loquacious by nature. But Spencer fascinated her, more than any woman had for a long time. She ignited a spark within her that somehow got her convinced that the brunette wanted to know her just as well as she wanted to know the brunette. And that’s what they had been doing for hours.

The Brew’s owner, a handsome man in his late thirties, closed up shop around them but silently allowed the pair to stay. He even offered to refill their drinks on the house! He must have seen what Emily felt. However, a glance at her watch told her it was approaching ten o’clock. “We should go,” she told Spencer. Out of courtesy to the owner. “Let’s continue this conversation someplace else.” Okay, maybe not just because of that. “You can follow me in your car?”

“I don’t have a car,” Spencer said. “In Rosewood, I mean. I have one in LA, but I flew here and it didn’t make sense renting one when the town is small enough to walk around. Besides, I figured that I should walk for once.”

Emily nodded in understanding. She lived that city life, and she since she required a car because of her job, she knew that finding parking around a metropolis like New York or Los Angeles was a pain. “You can ride in my car, and we’ll just go back to where you’re staying,” she said. “Let’s even pick up dinner on the way.”

“It’s late.”

“A couple of places are still open,” Emily said. “Let’s get pizza or something.” She sensed reluctance in Spencer. “Come on,” she urged. “They do woodfired stuffed crust at this place across the road. Twenty-four hours.”

“All right,” Spencer acquiesced. “I suppose that woman does not live on coffee alone.”

With that, Emily was certain that this was more than simple fascination.

“I hate to say this because I just met you,” Spencer started, “but you’re so predictable.”

Emily glanced sideways at her. She was busy making hot cocoa in Spencer’s kitchenette in her motel room just on the edge of the township. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

“Your car is a Prius. Did you get lost on the way back from West Hollywood or something?”

“Hey!” Emily protested. “You should see my work car. Toyota Tacoma - the pickup truck? It’s pretty cool, I’m in love with it, but I’m besotted with this Prius. It’s clean, inexpensive, inconspicuous.”

“If you were in West Hollywood.”

“You’re probably one of those people who own a gas guzzling American car and don’t give a fuck about how much they’re spending on gas, because hey, your engine can probably cause one of the houses around here to rock off its foundations.”

“Sure, yeah,” Spencer said vaguely. She drove a restored first generation Chevrolet Camaro, and with the expenses on gas, she didn’t know how she managed to feed herself every week. But she wouldn’t ever admit that to Emily.

“A reprehensible thought,” Emily tutted. She looked Spencer directly in the eye as she offered her the mug of cocoa she just finished stirring. “That’s one of your writer words, isn’t it?”

“Sounds like one,” Spencer said. “But it’s never come up in any dialogue I’ve written, as far as I can remember. It’s just not something that people say, you know?” She sat on her bed, and patted the space next to her for Emily, but the other woman was content to perch on the edge.

“Tell me something,” Emily said. “Why are you writing for television? I thought the Hollywood dream for writers was to get the screenplay on the big screen.”

This was the one sentiment that always made Spencer feel like an underachiever. After her parents had gotten over her choice not to attend law school, they used to ask, “Why TV? Why not film?” And then she would paraphrase Shonda Rhimes to them: “Film is for directors, TV is for writers.” She would leave it at that; some things were not worth arguing with her parents.

However, she planned on being thorough with Emily. She didn’t know what it was about the other woman - probably the way the corner of her lips tugged upwards whenever she heard something which pleased her, or the way her eyes bore into Spencer in a way that made her come off as genuinely interested - but Spencer couldn’t bring herself to half-assed answers.

“I used to write plays, which were kind of like film, but more dialogue-heavy, whereas film and TV are visual. Television allows much more scope and freedom than plays or film.” Ocean of You had only been picked up for ten forty-five minute episodes but that was still the length of five average feature films. “I can explore and stretch out every dimension of a relationship, and do it to several relationships if I want.”

Emily appeared to consider that carefully. Then she said, “So, film is like a short story but television is like a novel.”

“Yeah. It’s exactly like that.” Spencer was grinning. Even after being in Hollywood for over a decade, she had never heard it put that way. Perhaps she was hanging out with the wrong people, though they were mostly writers like her, too. But perhaps Emily was who she had been waiting for all this time. “What about you?” she asked. “Why do you like taking on colonial houses?” Emily had mentioned that in passing.

“Same reason as you write for TV,” Emily said. “Freedom.” There was a wistful smile on her face. “I grew up in Texas, in an army base, because my dad’s a soldier. Every inch of that space was carefully planned. After college I moved to New York and eventually started that business with my best friend, Hanna. It’s a strange place to be a contractor there. All we did was people’s apartments - which were also carefully planned. It felt quite limited. Until someone approached us to a house upstate. There was just so much space, I didn’t know what to do with myself. When we finished it, I think that was one of our best works. And I vowed to do at least take on those kinds of clients as much as I could.”

“I’d love to see some of your work,” Spencer said. “Do you have photos?”

“Not on me, but I can send you some when I get on the computer next time.”

“That’s right. I should give you my email address and my cell number.” Spencer leaned over to grab her phone from the nightstand. She recited her details to Emily, who took them down on her own phone.

Emily returned the favour by sharing her own details. “I’d like to keep in touch,” she said afterwards, in a more timid tone than Spencer had heard her use in the hours they have been talking.

“I’d like that, too.” Spencer couldn’t stop the smile that grew on her face.

Respectful women don’t try to sleep over on the first date. Especially as it wasn’t even a date. So after using the bathroom just after one o’clock in the morning, Emily told Spencer that she was heading back to her hotel. The brunette’s brows knitted in worry. “Is it safe to drive here at night?”

“I’m sure it is. There are only seven thousand people here, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Don’t say stuff like that!” Spencer said. “It’s in small towns where the most shit goes down.”

Emily laughed as she walked to Spencer’s door. The other woman was following behind her, albeit slowly. “You watch far too many horror movies,” she said. “You know that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is fiction, right?”

Spencer didn’t respond.

“How about I text you as soon as I get back to my hotel room?” Emily asked. “I’ll probably be the only thirty-four-year-old on the planet that offers to do that to assuage a virtual stranger's feelings?"

"I'm not a virtual stranger!" Spencer was right. They had been talking for over nine hours.

"Okay, I'm sorry!" Emily said. "Friends, then?"

“Fine.” Spencer bit her lip, suddenly shy. “When do you think we’ll see each other again?” The question was directed at Emily’s feet.

“Soon, I hope. It’s up to you, Miss Hollywood, busy head writer of a television show,” Emily teased. Spencer’s eyes were still cast on the ground. “Hey.” She stepped forward and placed a hand on each of the other woman’s shoulders. “Look at me,” she said softly.

Spencer’s eyes rose up to meet hers.

“I like you,” Emily said. She was being unusually frank. “I think we have something. I don’t know what it is, but I want to see where this,” she shook Spencer gently, “takes us.” She looked into Spencer’s eyes properly and felt the insides of her stomach warm up. “Is that okay with you?” Her voice came out so softly, she was surprised that the brunette even heard her.

Her surprise only increased when Spencer leaned forward to press her lips against hers. It was quick and restrained, but Emily managed to taste the sweet hint of the marshmallows from the cocoa on them. Spencer pulled away, and there was apprehension in her eyes. And Emily could hear the tremor in her voice when she asked: “Does that answer your question?”