Author name: Itsuwari
Author e-mail: shermif@hotmail.com
Category: Angst
Keywords: Dana, Sam, Casey, strawberry cake
'Ships: Casey/Dana and Sam/Dana, but all angst, no romance.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Pretty much everything up to 'And the Crowd Goes Wild', specifically 'Special Powers', 'When Something Wicked This Way Comes', 'The Giants Win the Pennant, the Giants Win the Pennant', 'The Cut Man Cometh', and 'And The Crowd Goes Wild', as well as somewhat vague ones for 'Louise Revisited'.
Summary: It's no shrimp cocktail, but strawberry cake can work wonders on a lonely woman's soul. Or so she hopes. Post-ep to 'And the Crowd Goes Wild'.
Comfort Food
She runs out of the studio, exhilarated after the hour-long show that makes her life worth living. The cake's in her office; she went out to get it right before the show. It's strawberry cake, her favorite kind. Sam was considerate enough to ask her what she liked best. Casey never would have done that, she reflects smugly. Sam is in every way the better man. Maybe.
She says goodnight to Natalie, Jeremy, and Dan with a smile. She just gives Casey a look that says, 'Ha. See, I can move on too'. He rolls his eyes, and goes back to shuffling through his desk drawers. She sees him gently fingering something in the top drawer, and wants to say something bitingly cruel about her evening plans to him, but he bitterly slams the drawer shut before she gets her mouth open. The look on his face makes her heart break all over again. Not for her-- she's fine, things are good with Sam --but for him, because she knows he still loves her. And she knows she doesn't want to hurt him again, so instead of saying something, she pretends she doesn't know what he was doing. She doesn't want to talk about it, about them, about what happened. Not tonight. Not anymore.
So, she breezes out of his and Dan's office, telling herself how not shaken by what she just saw she is. She wants Sam now, anyway, she reminds herself. And he'll be in her office waiting right about now.
Amazingly, she's forgotten all about Casey and the panties by the time she gets to her office. Sam isn't there. She finds this a little strange, he's usually in there, but she guesses that he must be finishing his packing in his office. She gets the cake out of her top desk drawer, and grabs her jacket off the couch.
She turns toward the door. Casey's standing there.
"Why are you still here?" she asks, irritated that he's standing in the door, literally between her and her ability to move on. "Move."
He shrugs carelessly, but doesn't move. "Isaac patrol."
"We're not doing that anymore, dumbass." She can't believe that's the best excuse he's got. "It's been a year. Isaac's fine. He doesn't want or need us to look after him like that anymore. Now, seriously, Casey, move."
He still doesn't move. "What's the cake for?" he asks.
She glares at him. "It's for eating, obviously." She doesn't even bother to tell him to move again. She knows he won't listen.
"It's for Sam Donovan, isn't it?" Dammit. How does Casey always know?
"It's not for Sam Donovan. It's for me, Casey." She's so frustrated with him she can't think straight. "And even if it were for Sam, it wouldn't be any of your business."
"Sam Donovan's a womanizer." Casey tells her. His voice says he's delivering a simple straight fact. His eyes are pleading with her.
"He is not. And this has nothing to with him, anyway."
He believes her this time. Or at least pretends to. "Oh." Finally, he lets go of the door frame, and starts to turn back into the hall. He stops, and turns back. "You doing anything tonight?"
"Yes." she snaps.
"Oh." he says again. He turns and walks out into the hallway. She's not sorry to see him go, she tells herself. Not tonight, anyway. She follows Casey into the hall, turning the opposite direction. Sam must be in his office. She walks wearily to his door, which is only a few feet from hers, but tonight, it feels much longer. Her post-show high has been so prematurely tempered by her conversation with Casey, that even the prospect of her night with Sam isn't making her lightheaded anymore.
She opens the door. The lights are off, so she flips the switch and turns them on. The room is completely empty, except for the furniture that belongs to Continental Corp. Sam isn't there. She knows he must be somewhere in the Sports Night offices, though. He told her he'd checked out of his hotel that morning, he didn't know where her apartment was, and he wouldn't have left her.
Would he?
She runs out into the news room.
"Have you seen Sam?" she asks Kim, who happens to be the first person she sees.
Kim raises an eyebrow. "He took a taxi to the airport during the show, Dana. You did know he was leaving tonight, didn't you?"
The dull realization that yes, Sam has stood her up courses through her mind. "Of course," she says. "He left something in his office and I wanted to return it." She gestures to the small cake she's holding in her left arm.
She stares at the floor, blinking back the tears that threaten to spill out. When she finally looks up, she sees Casey standing there again. He heard the whole exchange. He knows she was lying earlier. He's trying so hard to look nonchalant that it's painful.
She goes back to her office. She can cry in here if she wants. Unless Casey shows up again, in which case she has to act fine. Better than fine, in fact. Because he can't know how much she's hurting now. He can't know how attached she was to Sam, how much she had wanted him, how betrayed she feels right now.
And even as she tells herself this, she knows it's not about Sam at all, because it's about Casey. It's about perfect fucking Casey and his awkward charm, and his little pet slut, and the fact that she's wanted him since she was eighteen. It's about Casey, but it's also about her. It's about neurotic, selfish, bitchy Dana who has to keep everyone at arms length, who had a revelation when she was so completely inebriated that she couldn't even remember her own name, much less that she loved Casey so completely, and who foolishly, pridefully acted on it, even though everyone around her tried to keep her from hurting herself. And hurting Casey, too. Hurting Casey even more, because she knows that he's the one got his heart broken first.
He's back at her office door. "I thought you were doing something," he says.
She looks up, and sees pity in his face. She knows that's not usual coming from Casey. She rubs her face furiously with her light blue sleeve, only succeeding in making it a darker color.
"I'm not anymore," she quavers, even though she doesn't want Casey to see her like this. Ever, but especially not tonight.
He looks as though he has something more to say, something more important, something that might make her feel better, but he stares at her face, and assumes she's broken up about Sam, so he just mutters "I'm sorry," and ducks out of the room.
As she watches Casey walk away from her again, she wants
to cry, but she doesn't. Because she has strawberry cake. And while it's
no shrimp cocktail, strawberry cake is comfort food.