Chapter Text
It was a perfect ending, Sara thought. Poignant, sweet, a little quirky. Themes and metaphors resounding over the rooftops as they looked down over the city they had loved together as they loved each other. The air had a blue edge, the sharp scent of the city rising around them. Nostalgia drifted on car fumes and steam from small bakeries.
[“Why do sane people come up here?”] she laughed.
They were as high as they could go, on this highest of buildings (not the highest any more, technically, but it would do for the poetry of the moment). They had reached the furthest point of their relationship; they could look down on the city and their past together, say their goodbyes. The narrative had reached its climax.
They were ready to become Mysterious Past Stories in each others lives. (“Oh, that one time I got fake-engaged on the top of the empire state building. Why, you ask? Let's just say it was a favour for a friend. One that involved a champagne bottle full of helium, sulphuric acid, and half of the FBI storming the building. Good times, good times” )
When Neal asked about their hypothetical future, Sara knew she wasn't supposed to be serious. We'd settle down in Westchester, she said. Have two kids. (Too real.) Called Conrad and Connie. (Better.) They smiled fondly, a little sadly, as this future drifted away over the blue air, because it was a good future, but not one they'd miss. Sounds good, but it's not me, they thought.
Neal almost blew it (idiot), confessing at the last minute. About the proposal.
[“I meant that one.”]
She'd almost blown it herself, crying (idiot, idiot) on the observation deck. [“You bastard,”] she'd said. [“That was too real.”] Too real, let's just pretend.
But it was okay, because he wasn't asking again, he was just confessing, like she didn't already know. And she could keep it not-real for a little longer. She smiled.
[“...Another time, another place, right?”]
Come on, work with me here. Don't blow it, Caffrey.
Her part in the story was done. She wasn't needed. Neal would use the evidence they'd retrieved to have his father cleared of murder charges, and then they'd have stuff to sort out. (Boy, would those therapy sessions be worth it, they should sell tickets.)
And he didn't need her, and the story was drawing to it's perfectly plotted close. And she was leaving, and Neal hadn't asked her to stay, and she hadn't wanted him to ask.
He lifted the illicit hip flask (“Helium in the champagne bottle, remember? Good times,”) and proposed his toast.
[“To another time. To another place.”]
[“To another us,”] she agreed.
And yet.
There was a moment – a second, really, when he'd said her name.
[“Sara.”] Pause. And warmth rushed through her, a sick adrenaline feeling – don't ask me, don't ask me to stay. Because he could, really, this was the place in the script that would allow for it. But – [“Thank you,”] he said. The warm feeling departed. Surely the shadow of cold in its wake must have been relief.
They watched the (absurd, utterly ridiculous, completely hilarious, weirdly ingenious) miniature blimp tootle off over Manhattan.
Then a couple of puns –
[“I've got my own flight to catch now.”]
[“Fly safe.”]
[“You, too.”]
– and an appropriately sad goodbye kiss, and it was over. They held hands as they left, keeping up the con, as a few people recognised them from the fake proposal on the observation deck and gave them the thumbs-up. But Neal diverted a few floors down, taking the service elevator, and there were some janitors within earshot, so they didn't have a second goodbye.
Sara wanted to curl her hand back up, the hand he had clasped, while it remained warm, holding on to the last bit of him, but she didn't. Because she was not in a teenage romance novel.
And, because she was not in a teenage romance novel, she would not now go back to her almost-empty apartment and sit among the boxes and cry. She would not go a park and mope about how she had nothing to leave behind. She would not go back to the office and eke out her goodbyes.
She considered, briefly, calling Elizabeth, but then remembered that El and Peter had dinner plans. Their goodbye was scheduled for the next day in any case – El would be picking her up for breakfast, then driving her to the airport. She'd said goodbye to Mozzie; Diana was upstairs, and busy... There should be someone else. Surely. Sara halted briefly in the lobby as her thoughts tripped and stumbled. There has to be someone else. I can't be so alone. Who else was there?
June. Yes, of course. They had hugged, yesterday, bade farewell, but June had definitely said that if there was time, she should come over for a drink. Yes.
Sara resumed her stride across the lobby, so relieved at having a destination that she didn't even notice the worried looks passing between the security guards, nor the absence of the FBI agents previously stationed at the door. She would realise, later, and chide herself, but would be grateful for her uncharacteristic lack of observation.
If she had noticed, she might have stayed. And then it might have been too late.