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Emily leans over her desk with practiced ease as Andrea stares up at her with the big attentive eyes of a deer. The notebook is clutched tightly in her grasp as she waits for the explanation, she is about to receive. Her heart is racing along with her thoughts, but her new task has nothing to do with it.
When she got the message from Miranda that she could deliver the book today, she was slowly filled with a beaming pride that spread through her chest and developed into a raging something that made her crave validation even more. So when she told her stern, redheaded coworker that she must have done something right to deserve the honor of delivering the book, Miranda was the last thing on her mind. She even quoted Emily’s prior words, that she could only deliver the book if it was sure “she wasn’t a psycho” back at her to let her know she listened to every word she told her back then.
"She didn't even call me Emily, isn't that great?"
It was foolish of her to think she’d get more of a reaction than a mocking grimace from Emily.
“Yeah whoopie!”
Disappointment rushed through her for the second time in the timespan of a few seconds. Until she looked back up from her computer screen and saw Emily approaching her slowly, looking absolutely gorgeous in her effortlessly chic blouse from -who knows what designer- and her hands outstretched and gesturing towards Andy as if she was taming a slow-witted child.
"Right. Now it's very important that you do exactly, what I'm about to tell you."
Words were coming out of her mouth, but Andy just sat there dumbfounded and tried to focus as her mind completely blanked. One second, two seconds. Emily reached her desk and leaned forward onto it, painted fingernails splayed over the very spot Andy’s hands had been on mere seconds ago.
She waited.
“Andrea!”
“Oh- could you repeat that?"
"Bloody hell, the things i have to deal with- Just listen to me!"
Andrea flushed sheepishly. "Oh yes of course!”
That was how she came to now sit there, trying to focus on the task ahead as the unearthly beautiful woman explains to her what she'll have to do that evening. The only reason she can focus and write in that notebook there is because of the overwhelming urge to make Emily, who has been nothing but mean to her, like her. Be pleased with her.
She hasn’t sorted out with her mind yet, why exactly that is. Or maybe she has and just doesn't want to admit it.
The only words truly getting through to her, while she stares up at those piercing blue eyes so close to her own face are “Andrea-“ in that goddamn accent- “You do not talk to anyone. Do not look at anyone. This is of the utmost importance, you must be invisible.”
Oh god, what if she’d just get a hold of that tie around Emily’s neck and simply pull-
“Do you understand?”
Her cheeks flush yet again, lips parting involuntarily and she chokes out a soft “Uh-huh.” Which is the only sound she can possibly manage after catching herself thinking such a thought.
Her voice is stuck, her mind is racing, her heart too and- oh god no this can’t be her body’s reaction to a girl that hates her simply standing this close and looking at her like- like something she can’t exactly place. Something she would have maybe categorized as desire if the person in question wasn’t Emily Charlton.
As she arrives at the townhouse, she is faced with each three possible closet and flower-table options to leave the dry cleaning and the book. And she realizes she is utterly fucked because she couldn’t stop staring at her colleague instead of listening to something that could determine if she kept her job or not.
“Shit!” It escapes her between clenched teeth as her heart rate slowly picks up. ‘Don’t disappoint Emily, don’t disappoint Emily. Come on Andy, remember what she said-‘
A voice. The twins, Caroline and something…. Cassidy, right! They -like angels sent from heaven- point her to the right closet and a wave of relief washes through her a tad too early. There is still so much on the line, but she can’t help but instantly feel lighter as if she was reduced from a size six to a four in mere seconds. God these fashion people were really starting to invade her mind!
Oh wait- she wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone, that’s what Emily said, right? Do not talk, do not look. But the girls waved her up. You can give the book to us, they said with sweet angel’s voices.
No. No this wasn’t right Emily wouldn’t approve-
“Or you could bring the book upstairs, Emily does it aaall the time!”
That makes her halt in her protest. Emily? The name triggers something inside her that doesn’t even let her question if what the twins say is is the truth. Only the mention of Emily’s name makes something settle inside her, like a sureness that whatever Emily does, whatever she instructs, Andrea will follow.
And of course Andy should have known better. She should have listened to the small Emily in the back of her mind hissing sharply at her to ‘not look at anyone, not speak to anyone, be invisible’. But all that could possibly get through to her was how Emily’s eyes had darkened and her lips hung open just a tad. How she would look, smiling when Andy finally did something right for once.
‘It can’t be that bad, right?’ Are her last living thoughts as she ascends the spiraling staircase, ponytail swinging behind her.
It in fact could be that bad and a thousand times worse.
As she enters the office through Runway’s glass doors with a pounding heart and wobbly knees, cold slender fingers immediately wrap around her wrist with bruising strength. A few seconds later she’s dragged into the green-tiled kitchen and pushed firmly against the edge of the sink.
Words she didn’t even register coming out of her mouth escape her with the speed of a flood, under the pressure of Emily’s stealthy look. She really shouldn’t be talking. She’s really making things worse, but it seems like she simply cannot focus on logical actions when Emily is there.
So when she’s done and breathing heavy small puffs of air through her swollen lips the redhead just massages her temples like Andy gave her three weeks worth of headaches. Which she probably did to be fair. Shit-
“You went upstairs? You went upstairs. Oh my god, why didn’t you just climb into bed with her and ask for a bedtime story?” The words come out sharp and pressing laced with a hint of visible panic flashing across her blue irises.
Andrea really messed up.
“Okay I made a mistake, I know.” She tries to escape with reddened cheeks and blood rushing in her ears, but Emily grabs her arm again, probably leaving the imprint of her nails in Andy’s skin while doing so and yanks her back.
“Andrea, you don’t understand, if you get fired it might jeopardize Paris for me and if that happens- “
“She’s gonna fire me?”
A moment of silence follows where Emily just collects herself and Andy can see a brief flicker of -concern? That wasn’t fear there in Emily’s eyes, it didn’t look like it, it seemed like she was genuinely scared for Andy’s wellbeing. Which was a crazy thought of course. A foolish one at last and something that was entirely wrong to assume in a situation like this, where Emily’s trip to Paris stood on the line. It must be that. It can only be that.
“I don’t know Andrea, she’s not happy.” She finally says after clearing her throat and tearing her eyes away from Andy.
And that’s when they hear it. And they freeze.
The devil is calling her name.
“An-dreAh?”
-
She starts running as she turns around the corner and out of Miranda’s sight. The only problem being she still can’t run very well in heels. But she manages. Well, barely under Emily’s scrutinizing glare.
Currently she’s having a complete breakdown at her desk, hammering mindlessly into her keyboard to relieve some of the built-up panic and rage cursing through her veins, while she listens to the muffled sounds of Miranda cooing into her phone, probably talking to Caroline. Or Cassidy -one of those little devils.
The unpublished Harry Potter manuscript.
What a way to make her pay.
Andrea’s mind just blanks, her blood running hot and cold as she searches through all the publisher’s contacts in the RUNWAY contact file. Not enough, this is not enough. How on earth should she manage this? Emily would hate her forever!
“You know, she just doesn’t get it! I could call frickin J.K. Rowling herself and not get a copy of that book!”
Emily just looks at her blankly like lost in thought about something she can’t quite place. It’s a look Andy’s never received before and it sends uneasy chills of curiosity through her making her briefly forget that she was mad, panicked and about to throw up over a goddamn Harry Potter book.
But of course the devil herself manages to terminate that immediately. Emily turns away, her eyes morph back into skeptical hooded slits and the moment is over as Miranda walks past their desks, throwing some additional cruel information her way that only ceases to make Andrea’s life just a bit more difficult than it already is.
Book there by three, something about a train and a grandmother and a steak in fifteen minutes-
Wait- a steak in fifteen minutes?!
It is a mystery to Andy how Emily managed to survive this for more than a year and she might admire her even more now -if that is even physically possible.
“No problem!” she hears herself say while boiling blood rushes through her ears.
She is so dead.
Emily just stands there with an unreadable expression hiding half her face behind her clipboard, listening to Andy’s uninterrupted monologue on how she is going to manage this.
Four hours to get the impossible manuscript. A steak in fifteen minutes from a restaurant that doesn’t open until 11:30 and only one chance to win Emily back if she ever even had her.
It’s now or never Andy. Show her what you’ve got.
Fifteen unavailing calls and one successfully acquired steak later, she’s back at the office with a severe lack of hope. And there sits Emily, composed as ever or maybe- maybe not at all so composed if she’d look closer. Her leg is bobbing up and down anxiously, she’s mindlessly switching in between computer tabs, and her nails are between her teeth, black polish cracking -a habit that Emily would frown upon brutally in any other given situation were it anyone else. Something Andy would normally tease her for.
But naturally Andy is too busy holding onto the last threads of hope she still has for her future in media. And for Emily.
“Is she back? Am I fired?”
Emily startles in her seat, visibly flinching with a distressed exhale.
“I rarely say this to people who- aren’t me, but you have got to calm down!”
The sound pops in her mouth laced by the expressiveness of her accent. Andy hears Emily add an almost inaudible ‘Bloody Hell’ and actually pauses in her rush, her body physically reacting before her mind can catch up. Right. Calm down.
Calm. She is calm.
Emily is right, she can do this -even if the redhead didn’t actually say that to Andrea. But she assumes it’s what was implied. An innuendo.
Steak, plate, desk. -First step done.
Exhale.
“Coat, bag.” The soft sound of the editor in chief’s voice reaches her ears, accompanied by the immediately following click of Emily’s heels on the ground as she went to fetch what was asked. It is appalling to think that a woman so proud and full of dignity like Emily Charlton is letting herself be treated like this.
Andrea wants it to stop, wants to wipe the smug smiles off all their faces and force them to look at what they are doing to her- well her colleague. How she is slowly falling apart, getting thinner and more hateful by the day. How she believed the mean things they said so casually and learned to repeat them like they were her truth. Andrea wants to show her she matters so badly.
And she is going to.
“What is that?”
“Oh-“ That’s your stake goddamn it!
“I don’t want that- I’m having lunch with Irv, I’ll be back at three. I’d like my Starbucks waiting.”
What?
“Oh and if you don’t have that Harry Potter book my then… don’t even bother coming back.”
What!
Andrea feels her eyes widen and something closing the airway to her lungs- Breathe!
Emily’s voice replays in her mind. ‘You have got to calm down!’ Sharp and dictating.
Is this really what Emily tells herself in such a situation? That she has to change something, be better, do more, calm down when someone is trying to make you snap in half on purpose?
She watches Emily hold up Miranda’s coat, watches the devil snatch it from her, making her stumble and sprint after her with her bag. Beautiful Emily with her high standards and perfect posture-
No!
Oh my gosh, Andrea has to leave! She has to leave this hellhole now! Because if she doesn’t leave now, it won’t be her own decision anymore. Miranda will never stop, Miranda will always make her life a living hell, if she manages this task or not. She’ll never stop.
This is her decision. This is her statement.
The plate with the stake bursts into shards as she throws it into the sink with brutal finality. Just where she and Emily stood just hours ago. Where Emily pushed her against that very sink and looked at her with… concern.
That's when it hits her cold and hard: If she leaves, Emily will have nobody left to tell her she’s doing okay. She’ll be surrounded by people that tell her, treating yourself like this is good. Being treated like this is okay. It isn’t! Not for her, and it shouldn’t be for Emily either! And worst of all for her- Emily won’t be able to go to Paris. She won’t live her dream, all because of Andrea.
Well actually because of Miranda, but still-
Andrea knows she shouldn’t do this. She made her decision and she should stick to it. It is a very rational, very healthy decision. Driven by self-worth and reason. But deep down she already knows she won’t. She can’t.
She has to try even if this means losing herself along the way. For Emily. For that look in her eyes.
Christian Thompson is a minor inconvenience in her way to success. A few nice words, her voice laced with a sweet edge, a quick trip to ‘The St. Regis’ and it’s done.
It really is done.
Oh my god! She did it!
Andy lets out an elated squeal and twirls on the hot sticky pavement in front of the Elias Clarke building, which earns her some weirded-out looks she couldn’t possibly care less about.
She fucking did it!
And after Emily goes to Paris, she’ll quit, reveling in her triumph. She’ll have proven she didn’t simply give up but decided against it even though she could manage the stakes of the job. And it’ll make Emily proud, which is the only important thing.
-
As Andy leaves a stunned Miranda at her desk with the manuscript and a burning hot Starbucks, she is so incredibly smug she doesn’t even notice Emily outright staring at her until after she sits back down. It is the same stare she had when she saw Andrea in those Chanel boots for the first time and good lord it feels good being looked at like that-
“What?”
“Did you-“
“I got the book, yes.”
“How-“
“Because you wanted me to.”
“Because I wanted you to?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Andy grins.
“I didn’t exactly want to be hunted to death by you Em.”
She opened and closed her pretty pink lips once, twice, three times. Andy had never seen Emily speechless.
But she had very well seen that look in her eyes before. Cheeks slightly reddening, eyes blinking slowly and little puffs of air escaping her one at a time. Those blue eyes slightly glazed-over behind her lush blue eyeshadow. She is so beautiful when she has that look.
And Andrea might finally understand what it means. Because when Emily’s hand wraps around her wrist this time it isn’t cold or bruising. Her grip is warm, soft and slightly shaky, when she pulls Andrea yet again into that green-tiled kitchen.
Just that this time there’s no accusations or screaming. This time Emily pulls her close and Andy follows impossibly closer.
“Andrea-h “
It is a desperate little sound from her and Andy enjoys it far too much.
"What is it Em, you finally going soft on me?"
"Oh shut up, don't ruin it."
She laughs, free and full and when Emily kisses her, she feels like she is finally complete. When those lips move softly, almost tentatively against her own and that woody scent of her perfume invades Andy’s senses, she is finally complete. When Emily pulls back and looks at her again, cupping her face with shaky hands, she is finally complete.
And Andrea Sachs now knows the look in her Emily’s eyes is nothing but affection. And she will replace all the other looks until only this -her- version of her Emily is left, and she looks at herself just the same way she looks at Andrea. Filled with love.