Listen to Sara Bareilles' City while you read this, because it was the inspiration for this fic, not to mention it's a lovely song.
They move to New York for Fiona's job because she'll have better opportunities there, and because most of her family is there. All Imogen has back in Toronto is her father, and it's not like he cares about her most of the time, so she doesn't even really protest the move. In fact, living in New York sounds like it'll be a lot of fun, and so, with her normal sense of optimism and a huge smile, she whole-heartedly throws herself into the next step of their life.
Imogen's 23rd birthday is June 17th, which coincides with the move-in date to their new apartment. Fiona does all that she can to try and make it special, but it's hard when they're trying to deal with the movers and make sure all of their belongings have arrived and are generally stressed out. The two of them are exhausted by the end of the day and Imogen hardly even notices that her birthday has passed. Fiona promises to make it up to her the next day, a Saturday, which she does. There's breakfast in bed (which is really a mattress on a floor for the time being until they find someone to assemble the frame) and whatever Imogen wants to do for the day (sex is first and foremost on her mind and Fiona's brand new lingerie shows she's been thinking along the same lines).
By the time the two of them emerge from their apartment it's three in the afternoon, hands clasped together and bumping into each other with every step, huge grins on their faces. They take a stroll around their new area, trying to familiarize themselves with their surroundings and that takes up several hours. They go back to the apartment around six, and Fiona tells her to dress nicely because she's being taken out to dinner and Imogen has to roll her eyes affectionately because she totally knew that was coming.
When Fiona comes out of their bathroom at seven, trying to put on one of her earrings, it's all Imogen can do to keep her jaw from dropping on the floor. Her girlfriend is clad in a deep blue dress that hugs her curves in all the right areas and has a deep v-neck that reveals enough cleavage to be some kind of illegal. Imogen practically wants to throw a coat over Fiona in case any guys get the wrong idea and decide to start ogling her once they make it out of the apartment, but she has to admit, Fiona looks stunning as usual, her hair down in wavy curls and her makeup down to perfection.
Imogen feels as though she's underdressed in comparison, in a simple black dress that's nowhere near as sexy. Fiona - in four inch heels, none the less - leans down to kiss her, smiling. "Beautiful as always, love. Now let's go, we've got 7:30 reservations."
—
Imogen's sure that if one more person - guy or girl - stares at Fiona's chest she's going to leap across the restaurant and gouge their eyes out with her fork. Fiona seems blissfully unaware as she eats her food, asking about Imogen's latest art project that she's been working on. Imogen blinks, finally looking back at her girlfriend. "I - what?"
"I asked how your painting's been going. Where'd you go off to?"
"Oh, nothing. Just the fact that your boobs are hanging out there for the world to see and the rest of the restaurant has noticed and I want to stab them in the face because the only person who gets to see them is me."
Did she say that out loud? By the look on Fiona's face, she did. But then Fiona starts laughing and solemnly tucks her napkin into the front of her chest, and all Imogen can think is that the Fiona she met in high school would never do something like that.
God, she loves Fiona.
—
Living in New York is a lot lonelier than she thought it would be. Fiona is often working and Imogen doesn't know a single soul, so she spends a lot of time in the various parks painting or in their apartment, and after a while, it just gets downright depressing. Fiona's hours get longer and longer and they see each other less and less and all of a sudden it seems like Imogen has a roommate and not a girlfriend when she realizes they haven't had sex in three weeks.
Three weeks is like three years to the two of them.
On a rare night when the two of them are home together and can actually do something, Fiona is going over something that's due in a couple of weeks and needs to be perfected, and Imogen finally blows up.
"Fiona!"
Fiona knows something's wrong, because she's never heard Imogen yell like that, ever, and she slowly puts down the papers and turns to see her girlfriend with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes.
"Fiona Celestine Arabella Coyne, we don't even see each other anymore. You're constantly working and I'm in this apartment alone and I hate it. I hate being in New York and I hate not seeing you and I hate being alone and I feel like we're just roommates now. I forget what you look like half the time and when you are home it's just - it's just awkward. It's like we've forgotten how to be around each other."
Fiona's quiet during all of this, like she doesn't even know how to respond. Her mouth opens once, like she's going to argue, and then closes again.
Imogen rubs her temple and then leans against the wall behind her. "Fi, maybe we should break up."
That spurs Fiona into action. She springs up from the couch, shaking her head. "No, no, we don't need to break up, we can figure things out. I can work less hours, I can figure something out at the office, we can - we can - "
Imogen eyes her doubtfully, wondering if they're already past the point of no return, but she wants desperately for things to work out with Fiona because she's all Imogen has at this point. She's all Imogen has even known for the past six years.
"Okay," she whispers, and it's almost comical how Fiona's face falls in relief before she crosses the living room to sweep Imogen into a hug. Imogen relaxes immediately into the familiarity of it with a sigh.
—
Fiona keeps her promise for a month or so, and then it's back to their old routine of Imogen being alone and Fiona working hours upon hours. Imogen finally makes some friends, though: some of the other artists who are constantly in the park trying to sell some of their works. They're a bit scruffy, sure, but they seem nice enough and they invite her back to their apartment to hang out.
She accepts, since she wants nothing more than to be included in something that involves other people, but what she doesn't expect is for there to be drugs there. And not to the innocent marijuana kind of drugs either, but the little plastic bags of cocaine kind.
When someone starts dividing up lines and she's offered a rolled up dollar bill, thoughts of Fiona flash through her mind. Strange thoughts, like how they were high school, before they dated, about the Ferris wheel, about their first fight in university, about their first night in their first apartment, about the time they decided they were going to try a new recipe and a flash fire started, about the time they considered getting a dog. Then other memories start, about how damn lonely Imogen is all the time and how maybe, just maybe, this will help with it.
So she does it.
—
She does it again a different day.
—
And another day.
—
It gets to the point where Imogen is regularly meeting her artist friends at the park with cash in her pocket and a voice in her head telling her that she needs just one more hit to make things better. She never does it at home and she's as careful as possible to make sure that Fiona doesn't find out, but it's not like her girlfriend is home enough to figure out what's going on.
One day, when she's coming down from her high and she glances in the dirty mirror of her friend's apartment, she has to wonder where her life went. She looks thinner now, tired, and the spark in her eyes is gone.
As she washes her hands, she grins, because it's a small price to pay for feeling like she actually belongs somewhere, like she finally matters again.
—
It's not until nearly a month later that Fiona seems to notice anything is awry, and Imogen has to laugh at how completely oblivious her girlfriend is about her life any longer. But when Fiona notices something, she really notices it, because she has firsthand experience through family members who have been involved in the same thing.
Imogen's been sloppy this time, heading home while still high and not thinking that Fiona would be there, but her timing was off by an hour or two. Fiona's sitting at their breakfast bar when Imogen enters, looking up and smiling when she sees her girlfriend. "Hey, babe! Guess what? I convinced my boss to let me take two weeks' vacation off because I told him I missed my girlfriend so much and that he's been working me so hard and I deserved it, and I thought we could - Im?"
Imogen's been bouncing around and moving rapidly, clearly not paying attention while Fiona's been talking, and she doesn't stop until Fiona's right in front of her, taking her face in her hands and staring her straight in the eye. Fiona's own eyes narrow. "Imogen, are you high?"
Imogen smirks. "High on what, Imogen?"
"Coke! I did coke, okay, Fiona? I've been doing coke, and it's great. Never felt better. It's like I'm on top of the world. You should try it some time!"
It's like Fiona's eyes reach the size of dinner plates and she lets go of Imogen's face, sitting back down slowly, shakily. She has absolutely no idea how to even handle this right now, except to make sure Imogen doesn't hurt herself in the next few hours and to wait for the inevitable crash.
—
When Imogen wakes up a few hours later, the first thing she hears is Fiona sobbing on the other side of the bed. Instantly there's a battle in her head: Good, Fiona deserves to feel like shit because that's how Imogen's felt for the past few months, but on the other hand, that's Fiona, and she loves Fiona no matter what, and the thought of her crying kills Imogen.
She rolls over, ignoring the little voice in her head that's telling her that maybe another line would be really nice right now, and faces Fiona's back. Her girlfriend is sitting on the edge of the bed, away from Imogen, and has her face in her hands. Imogen reaches out to touch Fiona and she jumps a little before turning around.
Her eyes are red and her face is so heartbroken that it makes Imogen want to cry right there and promise Fiona anything she wants in the entire world. "Was I really that awful?" Her voice is tiny and scared and so self-loathing that Imogen scrambles to sit up and shake her head. Everything is sliding into place in her head so quickly and, God, she was always called a drama queen for a reason.
"No, you really weren't. I just - I guess I blew things out of proportion. I made them worse in my head. You were working a lot and I was lonely and I just wanted you around more and I made you into this awful person who didn't want me around anymore and I thought that the cocaine would help and it did for a while. It made me feel like I was on top of the world. You'd know." She tacks on the last part because she knows Fiona self-medicated with alcohol in high school to help her loneliness. So, if anyone in the world is going to empathize, it's her.
Fiona sniffles. "Yeah, I do know. I just can't believe I didn't notice for so long..."
Part of Imogen wants to fight Fiona about this, tell her that that's exactly why she started in the first place, because Fiona stopped being there anymore and stopped noticing things, but Fiona already feels like shit. She already has the guilt of this entire situation on her shoulders and that's probably not going to be alleviated anytime soon. Or ever.
"I never did it here, that's why."
Fiona is quiet for another minute. "Do you - is this - is this your way of saying you want out?"
All of the times that Imogen was angry with Fiona and had thoughts of breaking up with her or wished that she could move back to Toronto and be happy again and just have this aching loneliness leave her chest are replaced with a desperate need for the girl in front of her. She can't lose Fiona, of course she can't. She can't let the one good thing that's ever happened to her walk away and not do a single thing about it. She can't lose the only girl she's ever loved or ever will love.
"No! No, absolutely not. No. Never."
Another pause from Fiona, who is now staring down at the comforter on their bed, hand twisted in the blue material. "Im?"
"Yeah?"
"Do - are you going to keep doing this?"
A heavy silence hangs between the two of them and Imogen can't meet Fiona's eyes. She loves the way the cocaine makes her feel, loves the self-confidence it gives her and how it takes away her loneliness, but she knows it'll destroy her relationship with Fiona. Or whatever semblance of a relationship she has with her anymore.
"I don't know," she admits.
Fiona wrings her hands, bites her lip, and finally speaks. "What if we moved back to Toronto?"
Imogen's head snaps back up, eyes meeting Fiona's. "And you'd stop working all of those hours? And we'd see everyone again? And things would go back to normal?"
"Yeah. But baby..." Fiona covers Imogen's hand with her own. "Baby, you'd have to go to rehab. You can't just kick something like this and pretend like it never happened. It's a serious thing. Tell me you aren't thinking about getting some right now."
Imogen can't.
—
So they move back to Toronto and she goes to rehab. It's not an easy process, and the detox alone is enough to make Imogen want to run screaming back to the safety of New York and the dingy apartment where she knows she can get high and escape for a little while again. Fiona deals admirably with her irritability and mood swings, and is there for her every step of the way. Fiona is so, so patient with her because she's been through all of it. She knows what it's like to desperately need a fix and not be able to have it and to want to cry and scream and get out the frustration in any way possible, and, honestly, Imogen couldn't ask for a more understanding girlfriend. Fiona doesn't even blame Imogen for any of this. She blames herself for every single bit of it and probably will until the day she dies. Nothing Imogen says will help to change her mind.
They reconnect with their old friends, like Eli and Clare and Adam, and their lives go somewhat back to normal. Things aren't totally perfect and Imogen relapses once when they're at a party that the Coyne family throws and cousin Victoria corners her in the bathroom, but they work through it. Imogen ends up taking an antidepressant after that and even though it makes her feel even lower (the irony) for a while, Fiona talks sense into her, telling her that it's nothing to be ashamed of.
They're much, much happier than they ever were in New York, and even though it seems like they went through hell and back to get there, Imogen realizes that she wouldn't change it because they came out in the end stronger. The last year and a half of her life have been the worst imaginable, and she and Fiona have gone through more at the ages of 24 and 26 than more people do in their entire lives.
The two of them are tangled together in their bed one December night in their new apartment, so close that their noses are nearly touching, and Fiona is gently smiling at Imogen, her eyes soft and full of love, and Imogen feels like her heart might just burst out of her chest because she feels so many things for this girl. Fiona traces Imogen's jawline and Imogen turns to press a kiss to Fiona's palm, smiling.
Sometimes, when things get stressful, the voice in the back of her head will emerge, telling her that now is the perfect time for a hit, just a little one, just to take the edge off, just to take away the stress, but then she stops, thinks of Fiona, thinks of how proud her girlfriend is of her, and she squares her shoulders, ignores the voice, and takes on the world.