Work Text:
It’s fate, really.
She hasn’t seen him in twenty-six years, since her own wedding where he stood as the Best Man. He’s been married and divorced since then, his ex-wife Aly tossing her satin dress-clad legs over Baela’s lap as they pass a bottle of wine back and forth. There was an ex-fiancee as well, Aly’s mouth dripping with gossip and rumor about her, about how Rickon wasn’t a fan and naturally, she had to go. Baela doesn’t bother remembering her name between sips, caught up in giggles that shake them both.
The bride and groom are long gone, as are most of the guests, but still they linger. They drink together until he finds them, rolling his eyes at the way Aly catcalls him, kicking her feet at him as he fetches her discarded heels.
See, Aly says, lipstick half-gone, smeared on her pretty teeth, I have him well trained.
Her mouth presses to Baela’s ear as Cregan walks back, filth against the cartilage that makes her face burn. Filth about him, about the things Aly misses that came with being married to him, the brush of lip against the shell of her ear that makes her shiver.
He fits the shoes back onto Aly’s dangling feet, doing up the delicate clasps with thick fingers, and Baela can’t stop looking.
. . .
“I think he’d kiss you, if you asked.”
Baela chokes on the wine, coughs through the burning and bubbling as Aly laughs and laughs and laughs.
“I mean it, though,” Aly says, sitting on the bathroom counter as Baela wipes at the wine-stain on her yellow dress. She feels twenty-one again, touching up her makeup in a sticky club bathroom while Rhaena giggles on the phone with Luke, promising to get him a fake ID for the next time, “You’re hot. He’s hot. I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“He was Jace’s best man,” Baela says, shaking her head, “not to mention, my daughter’s new father-in-law.”
“And?”
“It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Aly rolls her eyes, “You sound like Jace.”
Well, Baela wants to say, somebody needs to.
The discomfort must show on her face because Aly softens, reaching out to grab Baela’s hand in her own. Her fingers are laden with rings, cold against Baela’s bare ones. Alyssa wears her engagement ring now, her wedding band in Jocelyn’s jewelry box.
“I’m sorry,” Aly says.
Baela shakes her head, “Don’t be.”
It’s been ten years now, long enough that her own father even pushed her to go out, her stepmother plying her with sentences like he wouldn’t want you to be alone, he’d want you to be happy-
There’s barely ten seconds of silence before Aly, forever persistent, gives it one more try.
“You may not see it, but I’ve been watching him, and he’s been watching you all night. He’s a fan of your tits in that dress.”
Baela splashes water at her, cold from the tap, and Aly shrieks.
. . .
They dance, once, earlier in the evening.
It’s perfectly respectful, respectable, hands in safe places on waist and shoulder. An appropriate distance between their chests. Alyssa had picked some sort of orchestral number for this, wordless, swelling with emotions, and they sway to it.
She glances at the head table, finds her daughter there grinning with tears in her eyes, mascara smearing, and she can’t help her own smile.
“You look lovely,” He tells her, “Radiant.”
He’s just being polite, she tells herself.
Of course he is.
. . .
“There you are, we were just talking about you.”
Baela’s cheeks are hot, she can’t even be bothered to blame it all on the wine. Aly’s foot bumps hers teasingly, a grin half-hidden behind her flute of champagne.
“All good things, I hope?” Cregan asks, a flush on his ears that she can’t stop looking at.
“No. Only the wretched. The worst. If only you’d overheard and could defend yourself. Thankfully, you had a knight in shining armor doing it for you.”
“Oh?” He turns towards Baela, “You have my thanks.”
“You could give her more than that,” Aly says into her drink, and Baela kicks her hard enough to bruise.
. . .
The alcohol catches up with Aly eventually, Cregan appearing with a water bottle and cracking it open with a broad hand.
Baela finds it hard to look away, Aly has no trouble when she could be waggling her eyebrows in Cregan’s direction until he sighs and shoves the drink into her hand. There’s an amused smile on his face, a teasing remark on his lips. Sometimes, Baela struggles to understand how their divorce could be so amicable, so friendly, how they could have ever let go of each other. Other times, when they argue outside of the rehearsal dinner about who's in charge and who knows best, it makes more sense.
He hunts down their purses, digs his own wallet out of Aly’s, which makes her gut twist with discomfort to watch, and tips the waitstaff heavily for letting them stay so long. For letting them indulge at the open bar far too late. So dutiful, she thinks she hears Aly mutter under her breath, but Baela doesn’t ask her to repeat herself to be sure.
“You should visit us up North,” Aly says in the elevator, slurring, her arm slung around Baela’s shoulders, “Jo’s at school now and with Alyssa moving out, I’m worried you’ll be lonely.”
She’s been lonely for a long time now, not that she’s going to admit that to Aly. Or Cregan. Or anyone other than herself.
“Maybe I will,” Baela replies, “I’ve been wanting to travel now that the girls are settled.”
Cregan’s eyes are soft when she looks over at him. Her stomach swoops, leaves her dizzy in a way that she wants to blame on the wine. She can’t, though, their trip to freshen up and the plate of finger foods Cregan had brought them had sobered her up more than she’d expected.
“Well, my place is always open to you, but Cregan’s has better views by far.”
Aly doesn’t give either of them a chance to respond, stumbling out of the elevator with a grinning salute. They roll their eyes, watching her fumble with the keycard for her room and finally go inside before Cregan reaches out for the next number on the panel.
“Wait.”
. . .
“I’m sure Aly will be furious she missed out on this.”
He hefts her up higher, her hands clinging to the wrought iron fence as she tosses a leg over it. They’re lucky there’s no decorative spikes on the top, the rest of her body following her leg in a smooth movement aided by Cregan’s hands. Her skin burns everywhere they meet, cheeks hot as she fumbles with the lock to the pool gate until it finally gives way and she can let him in.
“Aly finds a lot of things to be furious at.”
He drops onto a lounger, leaning back and looking up at the sky. It’s clear out, the moon full and bright. Distantly, they can hear the roar of the ocean waves.
“Do you remember at my wedding when Aegon fell out the window?”
Cregan snorts, loud enough that it fills her chest with laughter, “Gods, I’d forgotten. Had to call the ambulance.”
“I fear the day that him and Aly somehow run into each other.”
“It’ll be a double funeral, knowing them. Alcohol poisoning.”
“Or we’ll be picking them up from jail.”
“For what?” He grins, the butterflies it brings her makes her hands tremble, “Public intoxication?”
“Among other things, I'm sure.”
. . .
“I’m sorry for not visiting sooner.”
Baela shakes her head, “Don’t. It’s okay.”
“It’s not, though. We both know it.”
. . .
His eyes drop to her chest when she leans forward, tracing the satiny slip of her neckline.
Gotcha, Aly’s voice says in her head, grinning, bolder than Baela feels.
. . .
“I was jealous of him. You know that? That’s why I moved half a continent away.”
“And after?”
“I wanted to go to you, to take care of things.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It felt like a betrayal, going to you because I’d wanted you for so long when I should have been going because I cared about him.”
. . .
She feels drunk when she leans forward, lips brushing, not even enough to be called a proper kiss.
“Does it feel like a betrayal now?” After all this time?
He hesitates for a moments, studying her face, searching for any trace of influence from the wine, the champagne.
“No,” He murmurs, “No, it doesn’t.”
. . .
In the morning, they’ll sit across a breakfast table from each other and pretend they didn’t wake up in the same bed. Just for a little while, until his son and her daughter get into the car to go to the airport.
They’ll stand on the curb waving to them, smiling, and when the car turns the corner and goes out of sight, he’ll bend down and kiss her in the sunlight, bright and burning.
. . .
When they turn to go back inside, their phones will buzz.
I saw that, the text from Aly will say, sent from where she sits at the pool, watching them through gaps in the fence they’d climbed the night before.
Saw what? Cregan will text back, looking at her through the fence, and she’ll grin, raising her drink in toast to them.