Archive of Our Own

It’s certainly not as if Adam thought he’d never see Olive Smith again. 

Yes, she transferred from Stanford to Berkeley after her third year, but he’s kept tabs on her. How could he not, with how remarkable she is? He’s read every one of her publications. He’s attended her panels. He knows — knew from the start, even — that she is one of the few smart and capable and driven enough to make something of herself. A good scientist. 

That isn’t to mention how beautiful she was. Is. Has always been, as far as he’s aware.

So, yes, he knew when she left Stanford that he’d see her at conferences. He’d see her name in journals and make a point to read every last word, even when her research had little to do with his own. 

He knew when she obtained her Ph.D. 

She deserved her Ph.D.; he only wished that he could have been there, as absurd a thought as that might have been. He certainly wasn’t in any position to send her congratulations when she graduated, or even when she got a postdoc spot at Harvard at what had once been Tom Benson’s lab (what had been his lab before he was removed, anyway; that entire situation was bad enough that Holden didn’t even brag about being right about Tom being bad news).

He is, quite simply, no one to her. 

At best, she may remember him from Stanford, or may have read his publications (though she has certainly never cited him). She clearly doesn’t remember that night in the bathroom — or worse, she does and she doesn’t care. 

He knows which scenario he hopes for, as foolish as it may be.

So when he sees her at a conference in Philadelphia, he doesn’t exactly rush to approach her. He doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable. Even if she doesn’t remember him, he remembers her friends — and they certainly remember him, too. It’s enough to make him pause, at the very least. 

He is, once again, keynote speaker. This is hardly a surprise (Holden tells him to at least pretend, but what is the point in that?), but it does mean that even more people are swarming to meet him than may otherwise. The networking aspect of academia has long been his least favorite. He believes that his work should stand for itself.

Unfortunately, he alone cannot change the structure of academia. Networking is necessary, no matter how much he may dislike it at times. When he finds himself in these situations, he reminds himself of colleagues he genuinely likes — because, contrary to what some may believe, there are certainly colleagues (beyond just Holden) he is genuinely fond of on a personal level. 

It is unlikely that every individual he interacts with will become one of those colleagues, but perhaps one or two will show themselves to be worthwhile.

For as much as he loathes it, he does expect the swarm. 

He does not expect one of his former students to ignore him entirely to approach Holden, who is standing next to him. “Dr. Rodrigues! Imagine seeing you here!”

Adam wants to roll his eyes at the blatant come-on, but he freezes in his tracks. Because in front of him stands Olive Smith. She is standing close to — Malcolm; that must be his name, though his last name isn’t coming to Adam at all — and eyeing him warily as Malcolm continues to ignore him.

Holden, traitor that he is, proceeds to flirt right back, which leaves Adam in an awkward position.

“Dr. Smith,” Adam says as evenly as possible. “I read your most recent paper. Excellent work.”

She narrows her eyes at him slightly, though she looks more confused than angry. “You did?”

“I did.”

“Tell me about it,” she says, as if she believes he’d lie about this.

He isn’t sure whether or not to be offended, but talking about research is safe. It will (he hopes) prevent him from acting like a complete idiot. 

Besides, Olive Smith deserves to know how exceptional she and her work truly are.

He delves into detail immediately, praising her work in a way that may seem out of character for him. Holden doesn’t say anything, too distracted by Malcolm, and, well, Malcolm was never Holden’s student, just as Olive was never Adam’s.

“I look forward to your panel,” he says in conclusion. 

“My — my panel?” she repeats.

Surely she must know that she has a panel, so he does not reply in the same sarcastic way he might reply to anyone else. “It does not conflict with any of mine,” he says. “Your research is excellent. Why wouldn’t I attend your panel?”

“Oh,” she says. She looks over at Malcolm, who is obviously in his own world with Holden. “Yes. That makes sense.” 

She still looks confused. 

Holden catches his eye for just a moment; Adam has a sinking feeling that he is about to interfere. Yes, perhaps interference might be useful, however, Adam likes to believe that he has this situation with Olive well in-hand. After all, all that is left is to… what? With a sinking feeling, Adam realizes that he has no real knowledge of how to date anyone. His relationships to this point have been both casual and utter disasters.

Is he at Holden’s mercy here?

There are worse people to rely upon, of course — he trusts Holden more than any other person alive — but the feeling of relying on anyone is not one he relishes.

“Why don’t we all go out for dinner? I’m sure Adam would appreciate going somewhere where he’s less of a celebrity.”

Adam can’t help but snort. That is putting it very lightly. 

“As long as I get to drag you out afterwards,” Malcolm says. “I’ve heard there’s a pretty decent gay bar or two downtown.” 

Olive looks as if she wants to protest, but Malcolm puts a hand on her arm. 

“Come on, kalamata. It’ll be fun.”

“Fine,” she says, though she doesn’t look particularly enthused about it. Adam can relate.

Holden grins. “Adam’ll pay. Don’t worry.”

And so they walk a few blocks to Chinatown, where Holden finds a Malaysian restaurant to drag them all into. 

“I’ve heard really good things,” he says, which may or may not be a lie. It wouldn’t be unlike Holden to look into places to drag Adam after a long day, but surely he has never once been here before. Adam’s suspicions are confirmed when Holden realizes the place is BYOB. “I’ll be right back,” he promises.

He stands and leaves Adam alone with Malcolm and Olive.

“Make any more students cry, lately, Carlsen?” Malcolm asks the moment Holden is out the door.

It is not that Adam is entirely unaware of his reputation — or of how emotional students can be — but the question takes him aback in its directness.

“If someone is unable to take feedback, I hardly see how that is my problem.”

Malcolm snorts. “Of course you don’t.”

“My job is to create good scientists. If someone’s research is lacking, it does everyone a disservice to ignore those flaws. Besides, I never attack anyone personally.” He knows how awful that is, after all.

“No, you just tear down everything they’ve worked their ass off for and make them quit academia forever.”

“I have never once made anyone quit academia. You both have positions at major research universities, do you not?” It is, of course, rhetorical. He knows Olive does, and Malcolm would not be here if he did not, himself. 

“You weren’t my advisor,” Olive says.

“No,” Adam agrees. He’d have had to recuse himself from anything involving Olive, anyway. Not that he’s going to tell her that right now. “But if someone doesn’t have a good reason to find themselves in academia, they will eventually leave — or worse: produce poor research that wastes funding and time. Surely you both understand how cutthroat it is here by now. Would you want grants that can help your work to instead go to someone whose research methodology can be outdone by a high schooler?”

“That’s not —”

“That’s exactly how it works. Most people would be better off with a nine-to-five. How many people do you know who have gone into industry instead?”

“Nine-to-five?” Olive repeats. She looks… confused, which is strange, because Adam knows she’s more than intelligent enough to follow the conversation in its entirety.

“Yes. You need a good reason to stay in academia. It will eat you alive otherwise. Or do you disagree?”

He knows Olive doesn’t. He knows her reason; it’s the best one. The world needs more scientists like her. 

He does not tell her any of that, of course. He may not be the most gifted when it comes to social graces, but he isn’t an idiot.

Olive looks deep in thought, so it’s Malcolm who says, “That doesn’t mean you needed to be such a dick, man. Need to be? I’m pretty sure you are still a dick, actually.”

Adam laughs. “You’re definitely going to get along with Holden.”

Speak of the devil; Holden steps through the door at that moment with a six pack of beer. “Figured this was better than trying to figure out mixed drinks. I hope that’s okay.”

“More than okay,” Malcolm says, demeanor changing entirely.

From a glance at Olive, she notices, too.

After dinner, Malcolm drags Holden (or Holden drags Malcolm? It’s admittedly a little difficult to tell; they really seem to be getting along already) to some gay bar in Center City. They offer Adam and Olive a polite invitation, but Adam has had his fill of accompanying Holden to gay bars. They make him feel out of place, and it simply isn’t enjoyable to watch Holden flirt with guy after guy while he stews alone with a drink.

He insists on walking Olive back to her hotel.

“You said everyone needs a good reason to go into academia,” she says as they pass a rolled ice cream place. Some stupid part of him has to fight back an urge to invite her inside — something tells him she likes ridiculous sweets.

“Yes,” he agrees. 

It’s strange, being alone with Olive. He has never been prone to nervousness, but with her… she matters in a way no one else ever has.

“And that most people would be better off with a nine-to-five.”

“It certainly pays better, and is much less stressful. I can’t speak from personal experience, but most nine-to-fives seem much less cutthroat than the world we live in.”

“Something that allows you to have the concept of weekends,” she says slowly.

His heart skips a beat. 

He has always remembered that interaction in the bathroom, of course; it tilted his entire world on its axis. There is no one in the world quite like Olive Smith, and he was gone from the moment he laid eyes on her.

But years together at Stanford… she never once acknowledged him. He was certain she didn’t remember; or worse, that she’d brushed it off entirely as something unimportant.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I don’t remember the last time I had a whole weekend to myself.”

She exhales. It’s shaky. 

He isn’t sure what is going on, but they reach the hotel and she doesn’t go inside. 

“Tell me,” she says. “What do you think the best reason for being an academic is?”

He doesn’t hesitate; he doesn’t need to. “Investment. Your research should be important to you; it should be your driving force. Maybe you have a question that needs answering.”

She blinks up at him. “This is going to sound ridiculous,” she says.

“I’m sure it won’t.”

“Have we met before?”

Of course, he nearly says, but then he realizes that’s not what she’s asking. She isn’t asking whether they’ve met each other in passing, or looked at each other in the hallway at Stanford. She knew who he was before today, just as he knew who she was.

She’s asking about something else.

“We have,” he says evenly, although nothing about himself feels even or measured right now.

“When? When exactly have we spoken before today? Because, yeah, obviously I know who you are. We were at Stanford at the same time. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? We’ve met before.”

If he didn’t know Olive — or, rather, if he hadn’t spent the better part of the past decade observing Olive — he might dismiss her behavior as strange and unreasonable.

But he does know. And he knows exactly what she’s asking.

“I thought you remembered,” he said.

“The bathroom,” she says. 

“Your expired contacts,” he agrees.

She swallows. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize it was you. I couldn’t really see anything. Anyone. I knew you were a man, obviously, and tall, but I didn’t…”

Well, that certainly explains some things. And here he thought she’d been blowing him off for years. That it meant nothing to her.

He’s starting to question that.

“I hope you don’t wear expired contacts anymore,” he says.

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you,” she says rather than laugh at his joke. “I — I mean that. I was going to give up on everything, but… you have no idea how much that conversation meant to me, Dr. Carlsen.”

“Adam.”

“Adam,” she echoes. “You have no idea how much that meant. I know you probably don’t even remember it…”

“I remember,” he admits. He does not tell her that he has, as Holden would say, been pining pathetically for her ever since.

She frowns. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You never did.”

“I didn’t realize it was you! If I had…” She trails off.

“If you had…?”

She swallows. “Thank you, Dr. — Adam. Seriously. You have no idea. Everything I’ve accomplished since that night has been because of that conversation. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.”

“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” he says. He wants to step toward her, to caress her cheek and maybe even lean in to kiss her. That is ridiculous. He doesn’t want to be reported, and just because she remembers the conversation that night doesn’t mean that she wants him in the way he wants her.

She does smile at him, though. “Well, thank you.”

And then, without waiting for another word, she steps inside. He stands there for a minute, just trying to recalibrate, before going back to his own hotel nearby.

“What do you mean you didn’t kiss her?” Holden asks the next morning at Starbucks.

“Can you keep it down? I’m not sure they heard you in the back.”

“Adam. You’ve been crazy about this girl for, like, a decade.”

“Nearly that, yes,” he agrees. “And she didn’t give me any indication that she wanted me to kiss her.”

Holden rolls his eyes. “I can put in a good word with Malcolm. Or try to. He kind of hates you, but he does love Olive. In a totally platonic way, of course.”

“Don’t you dare.” 

Holden doesn’t push; he knows better. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“I think it’s kind of bullshit that she didn’t ask for your number,” Holden says the next day after Adam shows him the email. It’s a sign of how desperate Adam is that he’s even willing to disclose the contents of the email to anyone, even Holden.

“She didn’t want to cross any boundaries.”

“The two of you really are meant for each other,” he says, which Adam doesn’t quite understand. “You want me to give Malcolm your number for her?”

He shakes his head. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, god forbid you let yourself be happy.” He rolls his eyes. “I love you, man, but you need to work on that.”

“How am I supposed to start anything with her on the other side of the country?”

“Move to Harvard,” Holden says.

He’s joking, of course, but the fact of the matter is that Adam could. He’s been courted by Harvard before, even after things with Tom Benson blew up. It wouldn’t be difficult to email an old acquaintance or two and reopen those channels.

“Adam.”

“What?”

“Just talk to her.”

Holden didn’t say how to talk to her, and in an email, Adam can examine what he’s saying before he sends it. Besides, he doesn’t have her personal number, and this isn’t the kind of thing you use office phones for. 

(He isn’t sure why office emails are different than office phones, but they are.)

He did not, to be clear, actually expect Olive to take him up on his offer about New York. He expected her to find some polite excuse and stay in Boston (or Cambridge, as the case may be; he isn’t sure where, exactly she lives, but he does know that saying Harvard is in Boston is technically incorrect). 

But here he is, at a bakery on the Upper West Side, watching Olive Smith devour at least a week’s worth of sugar in one go. This was not something he previously knew about her, no matter how he thought the rolled ice cream may have appealed to her, and it’s something that should disgust him… but instead, he finds it endearing.

He wonders idly if he’ll find everything about Olive endearing. Surely not, right? There must be something about her that will irritate him eventually.

He isn’t a stupid man. He knows that this affection for Olive is not rooted in truly knowing her. That, if she does allow him to know her, she will certainly not match the woman in his fantasies. 

He doesn’t think he minds. What little he does know about her only reinforces his desire to know her better.

“So,” Olive says, quite literally licking whipped cream off the top of her drink. Does she have any idea how that looks?

Does she care?

“So,” he says.

“You’re not as much of an asshole as you make people think.”

“I’m not sure that’s a fair assumption,” he says.

“What part? You being an asshole, or you being less of an asshole?”

“I have no delusions about who I am as a person, Olive.” And, until Philadelphia — until he had to reckon with how Olive might feel about it — he thinks he didn’t care very much.

Now that Olive Smith is in front of him, close enough that he can smell her shampoo, he thinks he cares very much indeed.

Some part of him — a part of him that is probably an asshole — almost wishes that he’d fit in some practice, whatever that means. As it is, he hasn’t dated anyone since grad school, and he hardly thinks random sex is what Olive is after.

Hell, she probably isn’t after anything more than coffee (if you can call what she’s drinking “coffee”) and disgustingly sugary treats.

“Holden likes you,” she says, taking a sip of her drink. So she’s moved on to calling him Holden now, has she? Come to think of it, Holden hasn’t been able to shut up about Malcolm all month. Adam wouldn’t be surprised if they all had some kind of group chat.

He tries not to feel jealous at the idea. It’s stupid.

“Yes,” Adam agreed. “He does. We’ve been friends for a long time.”

“Well, he’s not an asshole, so if he likes you, you’re probably not a complete asshole.” She says it as if this makes all the sense in the world. “Besides, you know, the whole bathroom thing.”

He doesn’t tell her how ridiculous it is to call their first meeting a bathroom thing in public. It’s New York. No one gives a shit. If anything, he imagines New Yorkers are probably more offended at her affront to coffee than whatever they might think a bathroom thing means. 

“Holden knows me better than anyone else,” he admits. 

“Then you can’t be a complete asshole.” She licks up more whipped cream. “So tell me about yourself.”

Strictly speaking, Adam is not fond of talking about himself. He prefers to let his work speak for itself, and he is not very close to many people — even those colleagues he genuinely likes are just that: colleagues. 

Olive, though, is different. 

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I really don’t know anything about you. I guess… what do you do for fun?”

He doesn’t know what kind of question that is. “Fun?” he repeats.

“Is that a foreign concept?” Is she teasing him? He can’t exactly tell. “I know we tend to make our work our entire lives, but there must be something you do for yourself.”

“My work is for myself,” he says. At her unimpressed look, he adds, “In my limited free time, I work out. And you?”

“I… I guess my life revolves around my work, too,” she admits. “But I also like working out. Sometimes I’ll go out to the movies. I like romcoms,” she adds.

“Romcoms,” he repeats blankly.

Yes, he is butchering this, isn’t he?

“Romantic comedies,” she says. “Are you unfamiliar?” 

He thinks she might be teasing, but the truth of the matter is that he really doesn’t know much about romantic comedies, so he says, “I’m familiar with the concept, but I must admit that I’m not particularly well-versed in the specifics.”

“That’s a tragedy,” she says. She takes a bite of one of those disgusting pastries. 

He doesn’t see how it’s a tragedy at all, but he is overwhelmed by a childish desire to win her over. He just isn’t sure how to move forward. 

“I’m joking,” she says after a moment. “I mean, it is a tragedy, but I’m not particularly surprised. You don’t exactly seem like someone who has When Harry Met Sally secretly memorized, let alone Thirteen Going On Thirty.”

“I don’t even know what those are,” he says. “I can assume that they’re romantic comedies, but I’ve never heard of either of them.”

“How old are you?”

The question sort of throws him for a loop. He doesn’t really see what that has to do with anything, but… “I’m thirty-nine.”

“Thirty-nine and you’ve never heard of Thirteen Going On Thirty? Or, scratch that, Harry Met Sally is the actual classic.”

He doesn’t need to ask to know she’s thirty-one, but this is what she’s getting at? “Enlighten me, then,” he says. 

What follows is fifteen minutes of Olive Smith being absolutely adorable as she explains the plot of a romantic comedy Adam has no interest in watching but would absolutely watch with her. For her. Either.

“And that’s the big grand gesture,” she finishes. “Happily ever after.”

“Do you believe in those?” he asks.

“What? Grand gestures? Or happily ever afters?”

“Either. Both.”

She sips her disgusting sugary beverage as she thinks about it. “I don’t think they’re the important parts,” she says.

It surprises him. He’d kind of expect someone who loves sweet things this much — who just described an apparently foundational romantic comedy to him, in detail — to believe in grand gestures and happily ever afters and riding off into the sunset.

Then again, Olive is an academic — more than that; she’s a scientist. Scientists can be hopeless romantics, it’s true (look at Holden), but… people who make the decisions they have usually have had to make some difficult calls when it comes to romance.

Not Adam, because no one ever really mattered before Olive, and he suspects no one will really matter after Olive (even if, as he hopes, there isn’t an after Olive), but… most people.

So he says, “Go on.”

She does. “Well, obviously, life isn’t like the movies. Movies have to have a satisfying ending for the audience. Real life is… real life.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “Real life is certainly real life.”

“I mean that real life doesn’t follow scripts or beats. And sometimes things are perfect until they’re not, and maybe there’s no such thing as forever, really… but I think you have to hold on to what you have. Maybe sometimes you have to make a decision to let go, for whatever reason, but… when you have something special… a grand gesture isn’t the same as actually putting in the work, you know?”

He doesn’t know; not from experience, anyway, though he agrees with her in theory. “Excellent points,” he says.

She laughs. “I wouldn’t really know from experience.”

And yes, while he has kept up with Olive Smith and her career, he has not stooped so low as to cyberstalk her and keep himself apprised of her love life. Namely because that’s a bit too self-sabotaging even for Adam, but also because… he doesn’t really know her. He never really has.

And he wants to make sure that her boundaries are respected at all times.

The fact that she’s currently single is not a surprise (Holden told him), but the fact that she’s never had a serious relationship… sort of is.

He knows how difficult their lives are, but the fact of the matter is that many people (if not most, at some point) find a way to make love work. For someone as wonderful as Olive to not have put in the work — or have someone else put in the work for her — it’s an affront to everything he knows.

Olive may not be perfect — he is not delusional enough to think that any real person is capable of actual perfection (again: he’s a scientist, and not a mediocre one) — but she’s certainly desirable. It’s absurd to think that no one else has found her desirable enough to put in the work.

At the end of the day, though, as they finish their coffee and he recommends some museums to her, he forms a hypothesis regarding Olive Smith — not about her relationship status, or history thereof, but about his own feelings. 

He is a coward where she is concerned, and, unless that changes dramatically… he is unsure whether he will remain pining hopelessly for a woman who will never love him.

Although he and Olive have exchanged numbers, their contact is not as frequent as he’d like it to be — and this is not just because he’d like the contact to be constant, and their jobs do interfere a bit with that. 

No, even as he agrees to speak about a position at Harvard, he can’t help but wish that Olive would text him more. Adam has never been one to text constantly.

He can see that changing with her.

Really, he doesn’t know why she would. Unless she secretly hates him, but then… Olive Smith doesn’t strike him as the kind of person to secretly do anything. It’s one of the many things he’s learning that he really likes (he refuses to say love at this point) about her.

He doesn’t have the nerve to suggest dinner, one-on-one.

“What?” Olive asks when he sits down across from her at the coffee shop. Not hello. Not how are you? But what?

“Nothing,” he says. “You just so happened to pick one of my favorite coffee shops from when I was a student here.”

She hums, taking a sip of yet another disgusting-looking sugary concoction that probably only has the slightest bit of actual coffee in it. “I know you went to Harvard, but it’s hard to picture you as a student.”

He raises an eyebrow. That’s interesting. “I’m not that old, am I?”

“No,” Olive says with a laugh. “It’s not that. It’s just… I don’t know, it’s hard to think about you going through all the same bullshit me and my friends did.”

“But I did,” Adam says, careful to keep his tone light enough to make it clear that he’s not chastising her. He doesn’t mention Tom, but he says, “Holden and I got each other through it, actually.”

She doesn’t seem very surprised that they’ve known each other that long. Actually, she says, “Malcolm said the two of you have been friends for… forever.”

“More or less,” Adam agrees. “At least since I moved permanently back to the States.”

“Back?” she asks.

“Well, to, technically. I’m a native US citizen, but my mother was a US ambassador to the Netherlands. I was born in The Hague.”

“I didn’t know that,” she says. Her eyes widen. “Not that I’ve researched you, or anything. I mean, I know your research, but… all I know about you beyond what you’ve told me is what other people have said. It’s not like I’ve looked at your Wikipedia page.”

“I haven’t looked at yours, either,” he says, though truly, he’s unaware whether either of them actually do have a Wikipedia page. It’s irrelevant.

She does smile, though. “What do you want to know?”

“Where were you born?”

“Toronto.”

“So why are you here?” Wait, did that sound like an asshole question? He tries to reframe it. “I didn’t mean to sound as if I were accusing you of anything. Canada has excellent universities and research institutions as well.”

“I didn’t think you were accusing me,” she says. She takes another sip of her drink. “I got a full ride to university here.” She takes yet another sip. “But that’s not the only reason. I don’t have anyone left in Canada. I wanted to leave, so I did.”

He wants to say that he doesn’t have anyone, either, but that’s not true. For as distant as his parents could be (can be), they’re not dead. They even send him a card every year for Passover to prove it, like he celebrates the holiday at all anymore (if anything, he thinks he might intentionally seek out the forbidden grains the whole week, but that’s a behavior he doesn’t want to probe further).

“I’m sorry,” is what he says instead, both because he is and because he knows better than to compare whatever she’s going through to his emotionally absent parents.

She shrugs. “Thanks. It sucks, but all I can do is move forward, right?”

“Right,” he agrees. Personally, he’s a big fan of moving forward. He tries not to dwell on his upbringing, either. 

He doesn’t know the reason why Olive isn’t talking about it, but it’s none of his business. She can choose to tell him (or not) at her own pace. She doesn’t owe him anything. He’s entirely certain of that.

“And speaking of moving forward…” she says.

“Yeah?”

She looks at him over her drink. “Call me when you get the job here. I think it’s well past time that you take me out for dinner.”

He blinks. Then blinks again. “What?”

She turns a little bit pink, and he — well, he can think of a dozen reasons why, but none of them make any particular sense in this situation. “I told you: I’ve been thinking about that night ever since it happened, and… you’re not nearly as much of an asshole as you like to act. So… dinner. Your treat, though.”

“A date?” he clarifies, because it is best to clarify these things.

“A date,” she confirms. “Once you transfer here.”

And, well, transferring to Harvard ends up being one of the easiest things he’s ever done in his life. Especially when he’s presented with such a tempting reward.