Fragile
Author: Pharo
Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to ABC, Bad Robot, and JJ Abrams.
Summary: She never saw it coming.
Spoilers: "A Free Agent".
Feedback: pharo@newyork.com
She feels fragile as if any sudden movement would cause what she has left to break apart at the seams. She does everything slowly, carefully, deliberately now.
She doesn't trust herself to speak yet when the bartender asks her what she would like to drink – it takes her a moment or two of looking over the choices before she softly answers, "vodka, please."
He eyes her worriedly as he pours the drink. She tries to fake a smile, but fails awfully and just looks back down at the napkin in her hand.
"Anything else, ma'am?"
She shakes her head and manages to offer her thanks. He moves to the other end of the bar to get more orders and she allows herself to release a sigh. She holds onto the white napkin like a lifeline, twisting it over and over in her shaking hands until it breaks in the middle.
She has to summon all her strength not to break down as the napkin falls from her hands. She looks up and blinks rapidly, thinking it'll stop the downward flow of tears, but the combination of stinging and the sharp light from the ceiling shining down into her eyes is too much for her to handle.
She tries to shake off the tears and forces all her concentration into the trivial task of tracing patterns with her index finger on the bar counter.
"Ma'am, are you sure you're ok?" the bartender asks.
"Yes, I'm fine," she says with a little more conviction.
She thinks its ironic that the stranger in front of her is more concerned about her welfare than he was when he dropped her off at the bar.
"Do you want a lift somewhere?"
"You just broke up with me and you want to give me a lift?"
Maybe she had no right to ask for his concern, but she had thought – hoped – that he'd see that she was not all right when she asked him to leave her here. She had practically screamed at him to notice that she was going to break, but he just smiled and told her that it was on his way. She knows that he saw the tears form at her eyes. The idea that hurts the most is that he saw her falling apart and didn't care. It felt like she had been slapped when he said that they could still be friends.
"Alice, right?"
For a split second, she allows herself to think that he has come when she looks to her left at the sound of her name.
It's not him though. She should know better than to hope that he'll think the whole thing is some big mistake and come back to her.
"Yes. I'm sorry, I don't—"
"Will," the man says, extending his hand. "Will Tippin. We met once at—"
She remembers his face.
"Of course. You're a friend of—"
She stops herself from saying his name.
"Rita. You're Rita's friend."
"Yes, Rita."
"How is Rita?" she asks.
"She's…busy with work. I imagine Michael is also."
She looks away and takes a sip of her vodka.
"I – I wouldn't know."
"I didn't mean—"
"I used to think I knew him so well," she whispers, "but I guess I didn't know him well enough."
"I'm sorry," he says awkwardly.
She suddenly feels the need to explain her current state to him. If not him, she would've readily told someone else.
"He told me that we should see other people," she says softly, looking at Will.
He has this sadness in his eyes and an expression of familiarity on his face that tells her that he's been there before. She thinks that maybe he understands.
"That's tough."
"I didn't see it coming," she admits. "I thought we were on the same wavelength and I didn't even know that he felt this way. It just seemed so…sudden."
"Is there someone else?"
She notices that he doesn't lift his eyes from the glass in front of him when he asks the question. He just swirls the drink with his straw as she goes back to her own glass of vodka.
She thinks about all the times he left in the middle of the night. All the breakfasts he skipped out on because he had to go meet a colleague or all the dinners he cancelled on because he was working late.
"Oh God," she exclaims with the sudden revelation. "He could've been having an affair and I was just unwilling to notice it. I was so stupid. I had blinders on and all the classic signs were there."
"Sometimes, it's just easier to ignore the signs."
She nods.
"You know what the sad thing is? I'd take him back if he walked through that door right now. I'd pretend that…that nothing happened."
"You love him," Will simply says.
"Yes. I'd take him back again and the same thing would happen."
"You don't know that."
"I do," she says quietly. "It's happened before. We did the same thing all over again. You would think that I'd catch on the second time around, but I didn't. He was the one to walk away again. I'm left with all the pain again."
"It sounds like he's not worth it, Alice."
She takes another sip of the vodka.
"He's not, but I keep going back."
"Why? You're a good looking woman and you've got a great—"
"Because I'm in love with him," she says, looking straight at Will. "I don't know how to move on."
He gives a nod of acknowledgment.
"You know, I told myself last time that I'd be the one to have an affair this time. I'd fall in love with someone else so that he'd know how it felt, but really, he wouldn't have cared. He'd probably be relieved."
"Why'd you break up the first time?"
"It was about his work. He just walked out. He told me that I shouldn't have to reschedule because of him. It was all a damn excuse," she says bitterly. "A damn lie. He wanted to cut loose and that was the perfect opportunity for him to do it."
She looks down.
"Alice, I…I shouldn't have said anything."
She forces a smile.
"It wouldn't have changed how I felt," she says, wiping her tears. "God, I hate him for doing this to me. I'm usually not…I don't cry like this at all."
She laughs bitterly.
"I break down like this only when it comes to him."
"I think we've all got someone that does that to us," he says.
"You too?"
He nods.
"The way I figure, we love them so much that we can't think clearly. We're too close to the situation to have any type of perspective, so we sit back and we keep wishing for things to stay perfect," he says before taking another drink from the small glass. "The thing is, things can't stay perfect forever, you know? Everything falls apart if you wait long enough."
It doesn't make it hurt less to know that he's right.
"What do you do for a living, Will?"
"I'm a reporter."
"I figured you were a writer," she says finishing off her drink. "You sound like a writer."
He smiles at this.
"What do you do?"
"I work for a bank."
She can't help but laugh at the strange expression on his face.
"Do you want a ride?" he asks, finishing his own shot of bourbon.
"Why not?"
She doesn't feel as fragile as she did before.