Disclaimer: Still don't own Moonlighting.
Author's Note: The episode "Perfetc," which ends with David inviting Maddie to accompany him to Paris, was supposed to be Moonlighting's season five finale. Sadly, the show got the chop, and the writers were left scrambling to cobble together a series finale in only three episodes (with predictably disastrous results, IMO). The Paris trip was never mentioned again.
But my 'essed imagination has never stopped wondering what might've happened in the…
City of Love
Chapter One
Air France Flight 1321, LAX-CDG
What am I doing here? Maddie wondered.
Perhaps that was the wrong question. Obviously, no one in their right mind would turn down a first-class, all-expenses-paid trip to Paris.
OK, then, she thought, what are WE doing here?
She looked across at David, eyes closed, blanket tucked around him in the generous leather seat. A half-smile suddenly shifted his relaxed features; Maddie waited for him to open one eye and make some crack about her staring at him…but then he rolled to the side and she heard a tiny snore. Guess he was just having a good dream.
In her wildest dreams, she would never have pictured this: the two of them, flying to Europe together. Even in the throes of their topsy-turvy affair, she hadn't had visions of romantic getaways; and as far as she knew, neither had David. A trip to the all-night diner, sure. Bowling alley? Definitely. The Laundromat where they broke up held a kind of inevitability too, as though it had been waiting for them.
Truth be told, most of the time they'd been together, she hadn't wanted to venture more than a phone-cord's length from her bed. Or his. Not only because of the physical craving that fourteen hours in tangled sheets couldn't fully satisfy…but because she was uncomfortable being seen in public with David when they weren't on the job. She felt raw, exposed somehow, like everyone around them knew exactly what they had been doing—or planned on doing. (Or, at least on her side, planned never to do again…and again…and again…)
No need to worry about that anymore. She still loved David, and knew he still cared about her, but that indefinable, breathless, wrenchingly ecstatic intensity of being in love had been shoveled over by complications and missed opportunities. Oh, there had been glimmerings of it here and there—Maddie thought of the pearls nestled in her suitcase—but lately, David's wry sarcasm had given way to a hard-edged cynicism. He sounded like a man who had lost his patience…and his faith, too.
As for her…well, it sounded cliché, but her heart shattered when the baby died. (That was the thing about clichés. So often, they turned out to be true.) She and David had looked at each other over the great gulf of their grief; bridging it seemed impossible…except once, very briefly, in a stuck elevator. So she trudged on alone, working, working, working, until the pain numbed a little. Blue Moon had saved her, once before; she kept on, hoping it still could.
Saved, maybe—but not healed. No, something essential—the need to connect, to share—was broken, or lost. To open herself up to David (or anyone) now…well, she just didn't have it in her. Sometimes she thought she might as well collect a few cats and a quilted bathrobe and call it a day.
So it felt bizarre to be winging over Greenland with her business partner-best friend-former lover-"pal." (God. No wonder David called their relationship a "car crash"—they needed more hyphens than a chemistry diagram to describe it.)
Maddie sighed and checked her watch. Five more hours, and they'd be relaxing in a limo on their way to one of the most romantic cities in the world. Typical of their timing, too: five hours…and only two years too late.
TO BE CONTINUED
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