Work Text:
To Say 'I Love You' Right Out Loud
Juliet
She spends a long time thinking about what Mark wrote: "To me, you are perfect."
Perfect is a difficult concept to grasp. She uses the word all the time – she'd used it just that morning when Peter brought her a cup of coffee as she got out of the shower "Oh, that's perfect, just what I needed" she'd said as she gulped at it while putting on her robe.
But to have it applied to her? She's sure it doesn't apply. She makes personal calls on work time, she can't bake a roast, she eats ice cream straight from the container, she bites her fingernails. She's far from perfect.
"Do you think I'm perfect?" she says to Peter a few evenings after the Mark incident. They are lying in bed, her fingers trailing on his chest, sheets and blankets around their waists as they drowse in the warm glow of the bedside lamps.
Peter snorts. "Would a perfect person leave their make-up all over the bathroom counter?" he asked. "Or put their wet towel on the bed every single morning? Or hire a wedding videographer who can't film a wedding?"
"Oh, shut it," she says, nudging him with her knees.
"I could go on!" he laughed, "but honestly, Juliet, what do you want me to say? You're perfect for me," he concluded. "You're sweet, you're honest, you're funny ... you're perfect in all the ways that matter." He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. "And you're gorgeous. Why are you asking?"
She made up an acquaintance at work. There's another knock off the "perfect" Juliet, lying to your husband. "She told me I had a perfect life, a perfect flat, a perfect husband," – Peter preened at that – "and that I was perfect. And it's not a word to be tossed about lightly, is it?"
Things between her and Mark seem both easier and more difficult now. She tries for the light banter she shares with Peter's work friends, and that seems to go over well. Now that she's not terrified of offending him every time she opens her mouth, it's better.
She won't be alone with him in a room, though.
Mia
It's a challenge, a bit of a game, really, to see if she can get what she wants from a man. It's almost predatory, and it thrills her. She calculates each move in advance: each outfit, each suggestive word, each raised eyebrow is planned to extract the maximum reaction. When he calls her from the high street to ask what she wants as a gift, she knows she's got him.
Sex and power, power and sex. Mia has decided that men are quite pathetic when it comes down to it. Any man can be had, she's found, with some bold words and forward behaviour.
"I want something I want," she told him on the phone. And what she wants is to win. Not Harry, specifically. But he's the boss.
He's the power.
Karen
Karen is waiting. She's told Harry that she knows, and it's up to him to make a decision. He'd gone off to Paris at the new year, and stayed three weeks. The trip was two-fold - he had to visit the Paris office - but he also needed time and distance to sort himself out. Karen didn't know if Mia had gone with him to Paris or not. She didn't know much of anything these days, about herself or her husband.
This was made clear when she heard a voice in a shop that she'd swear was Harry's, but when she saw the man she knew it wasn't him; this man had long stringy hair and a sad cruelty in his eyes when he caught her gaze and realized she was staring. But she'd have sworn it was Harry, and realized that she hardly knows him anymore. She wonders now if she ever did. After thirteen years she knows about him. She knows how he likes things to be precise, ordered, and manageable. He likes Indian food but not Thai, and likes being left alone to read the paper on a Saturday while she finds diversions for the children. She's worked hard to keep their home and their life how he likes it. The mad rush they'd had when they'd first met had faded – it did for everyone, she thought – but it had grown into a partnership, a team. Or so she'd believed.
She tries to keep things normal for the children, taking them to activities, having Daniel and Sam over for dinner. She gets to know Daniel's new girlfriend, Carol, and her son. Some people tell Karen that they are shocked at how quickly Daniel has gotten over Joanna's death. Karen tries to explain that he had been grieving Joanna long before she died – death was a release. She wonders how long she has been blind to the death of her marriage.
All the magazines tell her not to blame herself, and she tries not to. She tries not to blame herself for not being younger, or thinner, or more adventurous in bed as she imagines Mia to be. The girl wore sparkling devil's horns to a company Christmas party – wasn't it clear what kind of lover she would be?
She drives the children out to Heathrow to meet Harry's plane home from Paris; no matter what is or isn't between them, the children need and love their father. Harry looks tired and old at the airport; Karen is sure she does, too. A sleepless night of talking is ahead of them.
Harry
The whole thing is surreal. As he's paying 270 pounds for a necklace he doesn't even like, Harry's thinking that this is madness, surely it's not really happening. Is he really buying a three hundred pound necklace for his secretary? He can't be – and yet he is. He must be bewitched.
He says no to the gift-wrapping this time. (Rosebuds and lavender don't seem like Mia's thing. If she were a rose, she'd have thorns, no question.) He knows she's dangerous but he can't keep away; her desire for him is unsettling and flattering, and he's helpless to resist as she draws him in.
Time with Mia is calm, quiet, and measured. She is sleek, like a cat, and she practically purrs at him when he does something she approves of. He can't help but compare this to Karen, who is excitable and sometimes shrill, who faces each moment with a joke or a laugh.
Karen isn't laughing on Christmas Eve, though, when she tells him that she knows. And even when he comes back a month later, penitent and tired, he can see in her eyes that's she's weary, unsure, untrusting. He must find a way to make her see that he's in this with her for the long run.
He has Mia transferred to the Paris office the next morning.
Sarah
Ever since their parents had died, she'd put her brother first. To be honest, he'd never been far from her thoughts when she was in the States for graduate school, but her parents had been able to visit him every day and look after him. Now she's all he's got – and he's all she's got. He's her first and usually her only priority.
Until she met Karl, she didn't mind. Luckily her job and her boss are such that she can take the time for his phone calls and questions. But in the two years, seven months, three days, one hour and thirty minutes since she's loved Karl from afar, she began to wonder if she could have more in her life than her brother.
The night of the Christmas party answered that – her brother had to come first. Since that night with Karl, she's tried – unsuccessfully – to harden her heart. If she doesn't get involved with anyone, well, she can't lose what she doesn't have.
It's only after a conversation with Karen – a bit awkward since Karen is her boss's wife, for the moment at least, apparently Harry has been cheating on her with Mia from work – she reveals what happened, or rather, what hadn't happened, that night with Karl.
"Your brother would want you to be happy," said Karen. "If he could understand the sacrifices you've made for him, and are making for him, he'd feel awful. You can't give up your own happiness for him."
Eleven months, two weeks, four days, thirteen hours, and forty-six minutes after the coming-together that wasn't, Sarah asked Karl out for a drink. She made a point of leaving her phone at her desk. And while she didn't mention anything about marriage, sex, or babies, she did talk about family. She talked about her brother, and tried to explain his diagnoses, his paranoia, his dependence on her.
"But it's better than it was," she smiled. "They've changed up his meds, he's less paranoid, less prone to violence. He'll never leave the ward, I know that, but he can get through a day without me." She met Karl's eyes. "And now I need to see if I can get through a day without being needed by him."
Karl can't find any words. Sarah takes a deep breath, steels herself, and takes his hand.
"Would you like to help me try?"
Natalie
The press loved her and the public did too. After years of scandal and guarded statements, it was refreshing to have a girl around who was common and who'd say 'fuck' and 'bollocks' in front of the cameras with no provocation. It didn't hurt that she was decent-looking and that the camera was kind to her.
The Prime Minister and his office did try to tone down her more spontaneous gestures – afraid of giving the secret service heart attacks when she broke through security. (Again.)
And when the establishment brayed about proper courting and the breath of scandal – could the Prime Minister be involved with a member of his household staff? was it appropriate to have photographs of her leaving 10 Downing Street in the mornings? - she held her tongue and stopped giving the finger to the paparazzi. She waved to them instead.