Work Text:
She feels it coming first in the way her chest tightens, and her throat constricts — and Emily Charlton knows she only has at most two minutes before she starts struggling to breathe and her vision starts blurring into nothingness.
All of this happening in the middle of a meeting too. Bloody hell!
“Emily?”
Someone is speaking to her, calling out her name for the third time. She blinks slowly across the conference table, trying her level best to mentally circumvent this predicament she is about to face if she doesn't do anything about it quickly. “Yes?”
It’s someone from Sales, and the woman repeats somewhat flatly, “The fall collection collaboration confirmation, if you will.”
Right, Emily’s voice seems to echo repeatedly in her head, the fall collection collaboration confirmation.
Not only are those words such a mouthful, but the connotation behind them is enough to leave a bitter taste in her mouth. Bitter, because behind the very collaboration is a name she has not heard in a long time. Out of avoidance, mostly, but Emily vowed never to be put into that sort of situation again, to see and hear—
Oh, fuck, Emily's breath hitches, now that her mind is full of thoughts about that collaboration, there is almost nothing she can tell herself that would regulate her entire nervous system again.
Her pulse quickens, skipping a beat so hard it actually hurts. Emily draws her breath sharply, feeling the way her heart is pounding too fast, too hard against her chest. The room starts to tilt, and Emily feels cold dread gushing down her entire body. No, no, no. Not now. Please.
She straightens instinctively, nails digging into her palms beneath the table. “You cannot demand for confirmation if the projected figures are not ready,” Emily says crisply, already rising from her chair as calmly as she could, “Figure that out first before calling for a meeting.”
No one questions her when she leaves the meeting room. They never did, and Emily is able to walk out of the room in perfect posture. Even though she could feel someone reaching into her chest and squeezing her heart tight. Her head is still held high, chin still parallel to the ground. She makes it halfway down the hallway when her lungs stop cooperating, and air just refuses to go in properly.
Not here. God. Please, not here.
Emily would like to think that she has spent the better half of her adult life building herself into a woman who could survive anything through sheer force of discipline; the impossible demands of Runway in her early twenties, surviving Miranda Priestly for a good couple of years, the unexpected thrust into motherhood because she was careless enough to have gotten herself pregnant, a rushed marriage that turned into a somewhat ugly divorce years later.
She developed this problem right after leaving Runway, right after realising Miranda's hand in pushing her out. That feeling of inadequacy for never living up to expectations had torn through all her defense system, and knocked her down like she was a paper doll. The first time she felt her airway closed up in the halls of Dior, she really thought she was going to die. She’d gone to see a psychiatrist after that, and three sessions after, stubbornly decided it simply wasn’t worth her time to continue the treatment. Which means this is an occurrence that isn't foreign to her in the past decade; it doesn't happen all the time, and there had been a period of time when she had gotten better, no attacks at all in an entire year. So Emily doesn’t think too much of it, doesn't think it is something worth treating as important because once you give it some importance, it turns into something you have to give constant attention to. She still has some leftover medication from her first few sessions with the psychiatrist tucked in her drawers somewhere.
So really, she should have been accustomed to this feeling by now. Everytime Emily feels that familiar ache rising from her stomach capable of crippling her entire being, she would handle it privately; rushing into the nearest washroom cubicle and locking the door, gripping the edge of the toilet bowl until her knuckles turn completely white. She would grit her jaw together so tightly it hurts, yet she wouldn’t feel the pain in her teeth because the pain coursing through her entire body would be so much worse. Emily would then remind herself to breathe, to do the stupid breathing exercise the psychiatrist told her to do, wait it out until she gets a grasp of reality again. It would usually pass after a few minutes.
And then Emily would stare at herself in the mirror, fix any smudged makeup with precision and walk back into her office or meetings like she didn't almost just collapse onto the floors of Dior, and now, Coach. Nobody ever realises it, or at least, she wants to believe that nobody has seen her at her literal worst.
She really thought she had it all under control. Yet control is something she lacks at the moment, and Emily presses one hand against her chest hard, with all the strength she could muster, hoping to will away the immensely tragic beating of her heart. It hurts. It’s starting to hurt everywhere.
Heat rushes through her body all at once, and the hallway starts to sway again. Emily barely makes it into her office, shoving herself into it as she slams her door shut and lowers the blinds in two swift movements. Her hands are trembling hard when she collapses into the couch, putting her head between her legs.
Breathe, she reminds herself. For God's sake, she knows how to deal with this; regulate her breathing by counting to four, inhale, then count to four again, exhale. In for four, out for four—
But it isn’t working this time. Everything hurts, and nothing seems to be working this time. Her thoughts are moving too fast, all at once, and they are overwhelming and cruel. This entire week being quite literally catastrophic; Bronwyn is down with a high fever, Roark got into a fight in school, she had missed the parent-teacher conference because she forgot to enter that into her calendar, her lousy ex husband being “unavailable” for the third weekend consecutively, the higher management being unhappy with the sales figures from the last quarter, that look of disappointment and disdain which might cost her a promotion, Emily having slept only eight cumulative hours since Sunday.
By Thursday afternoon, the world has become so unbearably loud for Emily, with the phones ringing non-stop in the office, all the assistants talking and whispering harshly in the air, the clack of heels against marble — a secret language in the fashion industry she used to love, being a clacker was like being part of some secret society only a few had accessed to — the non-stop new emails in her inbox that she has no time to attend to.
It’s so hard to breathe.
And the trigger, Emily wants to cry for help, the one trigger capable of overhauling her entire body was a single instruction from the higher ups on how they could improve their sales.
Through the Fall collection collaboration.
With Runway.
And now, every sound she hears scrapes against her nervous system like broken glass, and Emily could not fucking breathe.
Her hands are shaking so badly that she almost drops the phone she is clutching tightly in her hand. Is she dying? Should she call someone? Emily stares at the screen through blurry vision, and one name stands out on top of her recent calls.
Andrea Sachs.
She swallows hard, staring long and hard at the name, knowing it is entirely ridiculous to be calling her for help when she has handled this by herself all this time. She always handles it herself.
Yet, for some reason, her thumb presses the call button anyway. There are tears in her eyes as Emily waits for the call to connect. Breathe, Emily. She doesn’t even really know if she wants Andy to answer or not, because what could she even do if—
“Hey, Em! What's up?” Andrea’s voice is warm as always as she continues in a teasing manner, “If this is about our dinner plan tomorrow, I am perfectly fine if we go to the diner just down the street from your office. We don’t have to eat at fancy restaurants all the time, you know?”
Emily opens her mouth, wanting to reply with something clever as she always does, but this time nothing comes out. Instead, only a single thought attacks her mind rabidly; Stupid. Stupid Stupid. God, this was such a stupid idea, Emily.
What exactly had she expected? For Andrea to magically fix her, something inside her that has been broken for years from several streets away?
Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
Emily squeezes her eyes shut, horrified by the sound of her own breathing down the line. So laboured and heavy and just wrong in every way possible—
“Emily?” The shift in Andrea’s voice is apparent; from bright and enthusiastic to confusion. “Hello? Are you there?”
Emily tries again, “I--”
And the word dissolves into something akin to a fractured inhale, where she makes a sound, or maybe it is a sob, that is obviously broken and Andrea’s voice turns into immediate concern. It’s like she just knows what is going on with her. “Em, is everything alright?”
Emily nearly shoves a fist into her mouth as humiliation practically burns through her chest. She wishes she didn’t call Andrea, wishes she didn’t just expose her weak, pathetic self to someone like Andrea. “I’m fine,” she swallows the lump in her throat and says in between gritted teeth.
“You don’t sound fine at all,”
“Just forget I called,”
“Emily,”
It is that tone from Andrea, so gentle yet so firm, that prevents Emily from simply hanging up.
Andrea lowers her voice further, as if not wanting anyone else to hear their conversation. As if anyone would. “Where are you?”
Emily starts to shake her head, even when she realises Andrea could not possibly see her. “No, it’s fine, I just…”
Andrea ignores her protest and repeats firmly, “Where are you?”
Emily leans into her couch, sinking onto the flat surface as she shakes harder now. “My office.” And before she could even react to the weight of telling Andrea where her location is (as if she couldn’t guess even if she didn’t), she hears the shifting sound of Andrea moving about from the other line, the creaking sound of her getting up from her chair, the rustling sound of her probably putting on her blazer.
“I’m coming.”
“No.” Emily breathes out, almost in immediate panic, “Andy, stop, you’re working, you can’t just possibly—”
“Emily,” Andrea’s tone is now sharp and desperate, “You can’t breathe!”
The bluntness of it nearly breaks her, the fact that Andrea seems to have caught on to her condition so quickly, in just a matter of seconds when this has been something she had kept a secret for so many years. It's humiliating.
Emily presses two trembling fingers against her eyes, hot tears cascading down her cheeks. “This is so bloody embarrassing.”
Andrea disagrees almost instantly. “It’s not embarrassing,”
“You don’t understand,” Emily scoffs, even trying to string along a full sentence feels like such an arduous task at the moment, but she wills herself to push through. “I’m sitting here having some sort of psychological collapse in the middle of a w-workday,” She chokes quite literally for air as she spits out, “because apparently I can no longer function like a normal person.”
“Emily,” Andrea’s voice softens impossibly, in a way that makes Emily pause in her thoughts. “you called me.”
She said those words as though they explained everything, as though Andrea considers it an honour instead of a burden. Emily doesn’t understand, nor does she want to try understanding it now. Her throat tightens painfully again and she starts hearing her heartbeat pound loudly in her ears.
“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Andrea continues in her silence, as if knowing she could not afford to say anything. “stay on the phone with me until then, please,”
Emily’s voice breaks when she tells her, in one final flailing attempt at stopping Andrea from coming, “You don’t have to…”
“Yes,” is all that Andrea says simply, in a matter of fact tone. “I do.”
By the time Andy arrives at Coach’s HQ, Emily’s panic attack has evolved into exhausted, shaky silence. She is curled rather inelegantly in the same position on her couch, heels abandoned somewhere on the carpeted floor as she presses her forehead against two clasped hands.
The moment the office door opens after a rapid succession of knocks, Emily looks up…and her face crumples at the sight of Andrea catching her breath by her door. She closes the door, locks it behind them and crosses the room immediately straight to Emily; there is no hesitation whatsoever, no awkwardness Emily thought would be there after her cry for help.
“There you are,” Andrea murmurs just as Emily lets out a broken breath that sounds dangerously close to a sob she’s vehemently suppressing.
Andrea crouches in front of her without caring about the fact that she is wearing a cream-coloured suit, and that the dusty office floor is unlikely to be the best spot to be sweeping the fabric of her pants against. Her hands settle lightly over Emily’s wrists, and Andrea winces at how cold her hands are. She could feel Emily’s throbbing pulse, still fighting against calming down, and Andrea whispers softly, “I’m here now. Look at me, Em.”
Emily tries, but she just couldn’t bring herself to. She feels utterly exposed, completely vulnerable in Andrea’s steely gaze of concern and care. It doesn’t help that Andrea’s expression tightens with barely concealed worry as she tries again patiently, “You’re okay, sweetheart. It feels so goddamn awful, I know, but it’s going to pass.”
Sweetheart. If Emily isn’t on the verge of vomiting all across Coach’s floor, she would have reacted to that term of endearment. Instead, she laughs weakly. “You say that like you’ve done this before,”
Andrea gives her a look and a raised eyebrow, enough to make Emily remember.
Right. All their late-night phone calls in the past few months ever since they became official “friends”, fuelled by the insomnia Emily has developed over the past decade. There had even been a period of time when she had been so stressed with work that Emily had stopped eating properly, and Andrea had quietly stocked her fridge for her.
Emily remembers now; Andrea has indeed done this before. Many times, apparently. In some ways or another, perhaps unrelated to her attacks, but Andrea had cared for her.
“Oh, Em. You should have told me,” Andy says gently, in a non-accusatory manner that doesn’t make Emily feel even worse than she already is feeling at the moment.
Her eyes sting with fresh tears and she lets out a soft admittance, “I didn’t want to be difficult,”
The heartbreak on Andrea’s face is immediate. Emily glances at her briefly and already sees the sadness in Andrea’s eyes at her statement. There’s just something Emily reads in her eyes that makes her pause, as if Andrea couldn’t fathom why she wouldn't trust her enough to stay without leaving at the first inconvenience. That there is no need for Emily to constantly act so strong and impenetrable in front of her, and Andrea wishes she would know.
“Em,” She whispers fiercely, “You could never be difficult for needing help. Especially from me. Never me.”
Something inside Emily cracks open then, just slightly, just enough for all the exhaustion she has accumulated over the weeks to finally surface in her expression.
“I’m so tired,” Emily admits shakily, “I’m trying so bloody hard to do everything right, and I still feel like I am failing all the time. At work. With my kids. Do you want to know what was the trigger this time?”
Andrea listens without interrupting, her face void of any judgemental expressions.
“Miranda,” Emily scoffs and it takes her everything to stifle the sob threatening to spill from her throat. “Not even in person but just her name itself. It’s so pathetic, isn’t it? It’s been so long, months, I should be over it, I should have moved on. I mean I’ve done all I can to stay away from her usual paths, yet one word—”
Andrea moves without thinking; one second she is crouching in front of Emily by the couch, and the next, she is already pulling Emily forward into her arms. The redhead makes a small startled sound, with a brief moment of wanting to push Andrea away purely out of reflex, before collapsing against her completely.
She’s so fucking exhausted.
Andrea holds her tightly, lets her cry into her blazer, one hand against the back of her head and the other rubbing slow, soothing circles on her waist. She doesn’t respond directly to what Emily had just shared, because she had guessed that much just some minutes ago when she arrived at the lobby. One of Emily’s assistants had assumed she was here on official Runway business, and had gushed on and on about the possible collaboration between their companies. Andrea had no time to ask the assistant to elaborate, she only had a rough idea, but now she knows as much as possible what had happened.
Of course that hadn’t been the sole trigger, but all the unresolved issues between Emily and Miranda, someone she once revered and admired so much she would have given up her life for Runway, stretched too far and too taut in Emily's life. Until that one sentence she had heard from Miranda that had broken her into a thousand pieces, and Emily left her heart that day in Italy in tatters without ever quite mending it.
“You don’t have to do everything alone,” Andrea murmurs into her hair.
“But I do, Andy,” She murmurs tiredly, “and I’m supposed to be able to,”
Andrea states firmly, “Not anymore, Emily. You don’t have to carry every burden by yourself because…because you have me now.”
Emily’s breath hitches in her throat, not quite knowing what to respond to that, so she doesn’t. And Andrea doesn’t press further, merely caressing her back over and over again. She stays with her for nearly an hour, thankfully uninterrupted, and Andrea answers emails from her phone one-handed as she waits for Emily to slowly calm against her shoulder. Her breathing soon steadies, and all the ache she has felt a moment ago ebbs away into nothingness.
When Emily pushes back in their embrace, that’s when Andrea knows she’s nearly back to normal. The brunette gives her a sheepish smile and gets up to fetch her some water. Emily doesn’t have the energy to protest when Andrea returns with a granola bar she had fished out from her bag. While Emily eats in silence, she watches Andrea call someone using her phone, and she soon realises it’s the kids’ nanny, and Andrea is polite when she asks the nanny if it would be alright for her to stay an extra couple of hours with the kids, just to make sure they have their dinner covered.
She watches how Andrea handles everything for her quietly, without a single complaint, efficiently, without making Emily feel like she is a problem to be solved.
Rather, just being cared for earnestly.
“And we are going to get a proper dinner together.” Andrea tells her as she hands Emily her phone back. “Something warm and fresh.”
Emily hums tiredly, not having it in her to reject her offer. The thought of spending more time with Andrea leaves a feeling of comfort in her that she couldn’t explain with words.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, Emily realises something terrifying. The first person she had thought to call in the middle of her worst moment had also been the person who came without any questions and qualms. There had been no irritation nor reluctance, no conditions nor returned favours.
Andrea always comes to her when she needs her. Every single time.
“Andy?” She calls out softly, eyes meeting hers almost at once as Andrea turns from her desk — she had been packing things into Emily's handbag, getting ready to leave the office.
The words Emily wants to tell Andrea catch in her throat, and she opens then closes her mouth with a soft sigh. But Andrea just smiles at her, gives her a nod of assurance. “I know.”
There's no need to say anything else, Emily interprets from Andrea’s expression.
So Emily gives her a small smile of appreciation as she looks away, blinking back tears in her eyelids.
One day, someday, she will be strong enough to tell Andrea the words that are slowly forming in her heart, words she knows to be true. One day, someday, she will tell Andrea just how much she means to her, how much better of a person she makes her. That her day gets significantly better when she sees her, or even just talks to her on the phone. That Bronwyn and Roark have been giving their mother that look of obvious recognition in their eyes, whenever she talks about Andrea in front of them.
One day, someday.
For now, she settles with a simple I owe you one, and Andrea just waves it off with a laugh.