Work Text:
It doesn't happen on a holiday. The war isn't over. There's been no recent catastrophe at the station. It's an ordinary, rainy day in late winter.
Betty and Scott have spent most of the afternoon closeted in the writer's room. They had met to discuss the next month's programming at 10 am. Now, six hours, one shared sandwich, and several cups of coffee later, Betty is immersed in script planning. Scott, who in years past might have been banished from the writer's room for being too loud—too irritating—is quietly planning the next month's budget. For almost a quarter of an hour, the only sounds in the room have come from the radio.
It's strange Betty thinks, how quiet they've become. They've always worked well together, but never with so much silence between them. It is not an entirely uncomfortable silence, but Betty knows there times when they both think about words that remain unspoken.
Since the day Victor Comstock handed over the station keys, Scott Sherwood has been a changed man. He has taken responsibility of the Wartime Entertainment News Network with a seriousness most people would have thought impossible. This is not the same man who conned his way into a job at WENN.
It isn't that Scott has lost his sense of humor and mischief. It is simply tempered now. It is Scott who meets with government officials. Scott who greets each solider at the station's USO dances. Scott, who somberly reads each day's list of dead and wounded soldiers to WENN's listeners. He may have been a charlatan once, but Betty suspects he's been a good man, always.
Hours after Scott and Victor's ridiculous stand-off, Betty received apologies from both men. Scott has made no mention of the incident since he apologized. His attitude toward Betty, like has attitude toward work, has changed. He still teases. He still offers dinner invitations. But now he speaks less, and listens more. His feelings seem far more evident to her now than when he loudly attempted to woo her with words and charm.
He's always cared, of this Betty has no doubt. In the days after Victor's "death", she knows she never really went home alone. At the time, she told herself Scott was being a friend. After her private flight to Elkhart the following Christmas, Betty wondered about Victor's grand ideas and Doug's steadfast security. Most of all, she wondered about Scott, who got her home for the holidays. Later, when Scott admitted his deception, she knows his kiss was more than a goodbye or a plea for forgiveness. It was an admission of his love. And while Scott hasn't actually used the word love since the day Victor returned to WENN, Betty knows that he has been honest and true.
It is such an ordinary afternoon. The Vagabond is playing an Ella Fitzgerald recording for his passionate listeners. Scott is absentmindedly tapping his pen on the desktop. Betty is staring at her ink-stained hands as if they will give her the courage to finally admit the unspoken.
It is not, she muses, the moment a heroine generally admits the truth. But then, she isn't Elizabeth Marlow or Daphne Danvers, and Scott isn't Brent or Phillip. They are just two average people who are friends, colleagues. They are two people who realize they could be so much more.
It is on this quiet, ordinary day, that Betty will finally be honest and true.
She looks across the desk. Scott's eyes are on the ledger before him. He doesn't notice Betty's thoughtful gaze. He misses the deep breath Betty takes before she speaks.
"Hey, Scott. I love you, too."
Scott looks up, meets Betty's eyes, and smiles.