Work Text:
It was a usual Monday at Runway. Heels haphazardly going click-clack, stressed assistants drinking their 4th espresso of the day while trying to figure out what their boss was thinking, editors trying to summon deities to slow down the time so they can make their deadlines.
Nothing new. The same chaos that followed Runway through its entire existence.
For Andy, however, a couple of things were different. She wasn’t the scared assistant she used to be 20 years ago when she entered Runway for the first time. She now had a big office instead of a single desk, a space she used to share with Emily.
While Emily wasn’t physically in the building anymore, her ability to occupy Andy’s mind every waking second had remained the same.
And they were friends now. Best friends even.
(Best friends? Are you seven, Andrea? Next thing I know, you’ll force me into sleepovers and we’ll braid each other’s hair and make a friendship bracelet.)
And if Andy did plan said sleepover a couple of times, she’s just human. Sue her. Everybody would die to braid those auburn locks.
It’s past 4 PM when she receives the call.
Emily almost ordering her to pick up her kids from their respective private schools because their deadbeat father was absent again, the nanny was busy, and she was swamped at work.
Andy panicked.
She remembered how Emily once claimed that the only people allowed to pick up the kids were the nanny, Emily’s serious boyfriends (not Benji), and Emily herself.
She bolted straight to Nigel’s office.
“Nigel, I think Emily thinks we’re dating.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Six. Also, you aren’t?” Nigel greeted, unimpressed. However, seeing the state Andy was in, he got serious pretty quickly.
“Pray tell, how did you come to that wonderful conclusion?” asked Nigel while making Andy a cup of coffee. She certainly needed one. Poor woman looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Andy got into her story about the kids and Emily sounding so entitled on the phone, it would only make sense if Andy was the other parent. The step parent. The parent who stepped up.
And in that moment, Andy decided that’s exactly what she was going to do.
Roark and Bronwyn needed her, and she was going to be the parent that stepped up.
She bolted from Nigel’s office, got her stuff, and went to pick up the kids with a newfound mission.
Her name was already included in the emergency contact lists of both schools.
The kids greeted her with equal enthusiasm. Roark started telling her how they learned about space today and how he’s planning to become an astronaut one day. Bronwyn complained about her school lunch and how it wasn’t up to the standards of the money they were paying to school.
She was indeed Emily’s daughter.
All the evidence she was gathering was pointing to the conclusion she came to that afternoon.
Everybody thinks she’s the step parent.
She, however, hadn’t gotten the memo until now.
At home, Andy helped the kids complete their homework, played Mario Kart with them, cooked dinner while they were bickering about which Mario Kart character would survive the longest in space, and waited for Emily to have the serious talk.
Emily got home shortly after 8 PM. Completely bone-deep exhausted, carrying a sunflower bouquet for Andy as a form of gratitude for picking up the kids.
“They remind me of you, the sunflowers,” once claimed Emily during their Friday dinner that had become a recurring event in their calendars. “You are the sun, Andrea, and I keep following you to get a tiny bit of your warmth.”
Andy stood there, speechless.
While she was extremely confused when Emily uttered those words during their dinner, now it all made sense.
The speech that she was planning for the past four hours died on her tongue.
Maybe she doesn’t have to burst the bubble today. Maybe it can wait a couple of days, while she basks in the love Emily is openly giving her.
Don’t get her wrong, she doesn’t like Emily that way. She really doesn’t.
But she doesn’t have it in her to break Emily’s heart when she’s carrying the sunflowers like a lifeline and looking at Andy like she’s the only thing that makes sense in this world.
“I’ve cooked us dinner, Em,” she says instead with a smile while accepting the sunflowers. “Go wash your hands and come join us while the kids and I set the table.”
The dinner went as their dinners usually did. Kids laughing and making jokes. Emily casting shy glances at Andy, giving her the olives from her salad that she knows Andy loves, asking the kids about their day, asking Andy about her day.
And for a moment, Andy thinks how easy it is to pretend she belongs here.
After dinner, Emily claims that she will clean up and sends Andy and the kids to the living room to rest.
After she’s done with the cleaning and the kitchen is pristine, Emily sends Roark and Bronwyn to bed. They are big kids now (so they claim), they don’t need to be tucked in.
They do need goodnight kisses and hugs from Emily though.
And apparently Andy.
They sit in silence for five minutes, basking in each other’s presence.
It’s Emily that breaks the silence, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Thank you, Andy. I don’t even know what I would have done without you. I know you haven’t signed up for this or for the kids, so I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.”
“No problem, Em. You don’t have to thank me at all. I love the kids, and they love me,” boasts Andy.
“That they do. It’s hard not to love you.”
They end up watching a movie while the Manhattan sky roars and cries with rain and thunder.
Emily somehow convinces Andy to stay (not that she needed any convincing).
“What side of the bed do you prefer?” wonders Andy.
“I thought you’d prefer to stay in the guest room. If you’re open to sharing a bed though, I prefer the left side.”
“Brits and their preference for everything left.”
“Don’t make me throw you out, Andrea.”
If the guest room comment seems a bit odd to Andy, maybe Emily was being generous and giving her options. She has a kind heart after all.
...
Weeks pass and somehow Andrea has yet to have the serious talk with Emily.
Which is exactly how she found herself back in Nigel’s office.
“Well?” Nigel didn’t even look up. “Did you have the conversation, or are we still living in delusion?”
“I’m going to have the conversation.”
“Of course you are.”
“Tonight.”
Nigel finally looked at her. “Andrea.”
“What?”
“You live with her.”
“I stay over sometimes.”
“You have a toothbrush.”
“So what? I’ll bring one to your place as well.”
“Please don’t.” Nigel sighed and continued. “You share a closet.”
“We don’t share a closet. Emily would rather die than wear my outfits.”
Emily wouldn’t, in fact, die. On the evenings when she was particularly exhausted or sad, she would bundle up in Andy’s northwestern hoodie and cuddle with the owner on her couch.
“You pick up her children.”
“They need help.”
“You cook, you clean, you attend recitals.”
Andy crossed her arms. “I’m being a supportive friend, Nigel.”
Nigel stared at her.
“You’re in a relationship.”
“I am not.”
“Fascinating. Then I suppose this is what, an extremely committed friendship?”
Andy grabbed her bag. “I’ll prove you wrong.”
“I look forward to it.”
She didn’t.
That night, the kids were staying with their dad (who remembered that they existed with some miracle), and it was just her and Emily sitting on the couch with wine glasses in their hands and watching a trashy reality show.
Their unoccupied hands were sitting mere inches from each other.
It was Emily who started it all.
A small twitch of her finger, barely noticeable if Andy had been paying attention to the TV.
She, however, was not.
Another small twitch followed.
Emily’s pinky reaching and barely grazing her thumb.
And if Andy was going to be the one having the courage, then so be it.
So Andy grabs Emily’s hand, and the world stops for a second.
The electricity that runs through her body could light up the entire NYC skyline.
However, when their lips touch, Andy thinks she can propose a multimillion-dollar idea to the green energy industry.
...
Months pass and Andy is fully moved into the Charlton household. All her stuff is there, their routines interchanged, and they’ve started kissing and making love to each other every night.
That was a development that made Andy forget her speech altogether.
...
Years pass and Andy is standing in the middle of the living room panicking.
She had the ring in her right pocket, the one Emily once showed her and claimed that if she ever got married again, it would be only because of that ring.
It would be any minute that Emily would be returning from work now.
Their favorite song was playing on the record player.
The entire house was illuminated by candlelight and decorated with peonies and sunflowers.
Roark and Brownyn were stationed behind the couch, tripod and phone in their hands, competing against who’s going to take the most aesthetic photo.
Andy was scared.
The moment Emily got into the house, her crisp British accent filled the living room.
“Care to explain what all this is, Andrea? Are you holding a séance?”
Andy, the best journalist Elias Clarke building has ever seen, as per Emily’s words, suddenly lost the ability to speak.
Gone was the entire five-minute speech that she had planned for three months.
All she could do was drop onto her knee and utter,
“Em, will you marry me?”
Emily stood there, shocked and speechless for three minutes and twenty-four seconds.
Not that Andy was counting.
A single tear rolled down her left eye.
Her hands twitched.
She dropped down to her knees, looked into Andy’s eyes, and with the softest voice uttered,
“Andrea, why didn’t you tell me that we were dating?”
Emily did say yes eventually.
The same night, three minutes after Andy’s explanation.
And Andy still remembers the exact phrase that will never not make her laugh.
“So what? You just kissed me and had sex with me, and I practically raised your kids, and you didn’t stop to think if we were dating?”
“Sue me, Andrea. I’ve never had an American friend. I thought that’s how you do friendships down here.”