"I think we deserve
a soft epilogue, my love.
We are good people
and we've suffered enough."
Seventy Years of Sleep #4. Nikki Ursula
He said he's getting here at 3 and it's 3:01. Where is he?
Annie rolls up onto her toes and cranes her neck and still can't really see over the crowd. She wishes it could be like in the movies; she wishes the crowd could just part like the Red Sea and there he'd be, grinning and waving, and there'd be plenty of space for them to run and greet and he'd pick her up and spin her around and
"Watch it!" A middle-aged woman pushes past, dragging her small child by the hand through the crowds and - rudely - interrupting Annie's fantasy.
"Sorry," she mutters to the woman's back, though she is still mildly offended.
3:04 now.
Maybe he's not coming after all, maybe he just said it to humour her and now the joke's gone on far enough that he couldn't back out and he's sitting in his office at Greendale wondering how to break the news.
Maybe she got the time wrong and he actually arrived at 2 and wondered why she wasn't there and now he's off in some bar somewhere, thinking the worst of her.
Oh God, maybe his plane got in a crash and the airport just hasn't announced it yet and he's lying there bleeding and helpless and she's thoughtlessly berating him for being late-
No.
Of course not, don't be ridiculous.
She shakes her head in a fruitless attempt to stop conjuring these scenarios in her head.
(Spoiler alert, doesn't work.)
3:06.
She could go get coffee or something. He would probably understand, right?
3:07.
She checks the terminal for the third time since her arrival. Yes, she's in the right place, yes, she's here at the right time, no, he's still not here yet.
3:10 and she's about to phone him.
That is, until she hears a familiar call of "Annie?"
"Jeff?"
"Annie?"
She balances on her tiptoes again, scanning the crowd. There! He's standing to the side, watching the people who walk past in increasing confusion, and her stomach twists a little when she realises it's her he's looking for, her he looks so lost without.
So she allows herself to preen at the attention for a short moment before sticking her arm in the air and waving frantically. "Jeff!"
He catches sight of her, then, finally, and takes off, sheer determination in his stride. There's about 5 feet between them when something in his gaze roots her to the spot.
It's something like hope and also fear, but Annie doesn't know what exactly he's so scared of - is it her, or… Whatever might happen when they finally meet?
(Because she totally understands his fear. Of that. She's spent quite a lot of time thinking about that, and even though most of the scenarios are exhilarating and exciting and make her heart flutter like a kid with their first love, some of them are pretty terrifying.)
"Hey," he greets her when they're close enough to talk without yelling. His voice is slightly breathless and wonderfully clear, nothing like the static-y, tinny sound from their phone calls.
"Hi," she tries to tamp down the manic grin spreading across her face.
The corners of his mouth twitch until he's grinning, full-blown, just as madly as she is, and before she can do anything he's wrapping her up in a hug in a botched attempt to hide his face.
Warm. Firm. Soft sweater. Scratchy stubble against her neck.
It occurs to her that she's been holding her breath, and when she lets it out it sounds like a sort of broken sigh, but he must empathise with something in the noise because he pulls her closer, nuzzling his face at the point where shoulder meets neck.
When they finally pull apart the absence is a shock. Was it always so cold in here?
"Annie," it sounds like a prayer.
"I missed you." She has to step back a little to see his face.
It sort of reminds her of the last night of First Year, when he pulled away and she took her chance. The memory is bittersweet.
Should she kiss him now? Wait for him to kiss her? Does he want her to?
He looks as though he might be wondering the same things. But: "Do you know the number for the local cab service?"
"What?"
"Cab." He rattles the handle of his small suitcase. "Need to get to my hotel, right?"
"Oh. Right." She licks her lips. "Hotel, right."
Distracted, she scrolls through the contacts on her phone and relays the cab number to him.
He programs it into his cell, but doesn't call right away. Instead he is staring at her, a slight furrow in his brow.
"Do you want to meet up once you've settled in?" Mentally, she berates herself for sounding like a concierge.
"Yeah - that'd be nice."
"Good."
Jeff starts walking - for him, the exit doors are probably in sight - so she has to trot along beside him until she gets the pacing right. They soon fall into step, and if she looks at him out the corner of her eye it almost seems like they're back at Greendale again, walking to class or teaming up to solve a conspiracy they secretly caused themselves.
They reach the automatic doors and step out into the sunlight. It's a warm day with little breeze, but something compels Annie to pull her cardigan tighter around her.
Though she wants to say something, anything really, she stays quiet as he dials for a cab. The hotel address seems a little familiar. According to her mental map, it'll be a couple blocks away from her favourite park.
"So… How was your flight?"
"Boring. Cramped. There's no leg room at all."
She nods even though she can't really relate.
"I couldn't wait to see you."
!
"I'm really glad you're here."
He does a curt little nod and shoots her a crooked smile, and she knows he feels as awkward about this whole thing as she does.
There's really no plan for the next week. Even after speaking on the phone and confessing… things… The next few conversations until now were mostly about his flight, about what time and day he'd be getting here and whether or not he should settle for a Holiday Inn or splurge on something nicer.
But now what? Jeff's here, in DC, close enough to touch, but she doesn't know. Does he even want her, the way she wants him? He booked a separate hotel after all (not that she wasn't expecting him to! but she kind of thought. well.) and now he's just benignly agreeing to vague plans for the evening (seriously there's no agreed time or place or anything) and. Um.
"Is 6 okay?"
"Wha. What?"
"For later."
"Oh. Yep."
His gaze lingers on her for a moment like he's expecting her to say something else.
Maybe it'll help if she does. "Um. There's a little coffee place near your hotel. I think." (She doesn't think. She knows. But he doesn't have to know she researched his hotel.)
"Sure, sure." But he still has that look, like he wants something more.
So the rest of the afternoon is spent unproductively.
At first she reads, and it works for a little while but she's barely 3 chapters in when the nagging feeling overcomes her and she leaps to her feet, storms over to her closet, and rips the doors open.
What should she wear? What will he be wearing? What is appropriate for this encounter? What is this encounter?
Maybe a sundress. He always liked her in sudresses, right?
But then she tries one on (garishly pink, crowded flowers, suddenly too obnoxious) and when she looks in the mirror, she sees her 20-year-old self staring back.
Nope. No-go.
She wants to be taken seriously. She wants to look like an adult woman, capable of making her own decisions. Not a silly teenage girl in cutesy clothing.
By process of elimination, that leaves about half of her closet. Great, then.
It takes her a while (a long, long while - after, she hardly has time to do her hair) but by the end of it she's standing in front of her mirror in a simple red dress (which she totally wore to her internship interview, but whatever) and feeling like maybe the evening could go well. It's casual enough to wear to a Starbucks but nice enough to seem like date-clothes, and her hair falls in light waves over her shoulders and no matter how much she scrutinises herself, she hasn't really found anything to change.
Perhaps the only useful thing indoctrinated into her by her family was the advantages to arriving 5 minutes early for every meeting, interview, or gathering, however informal.
However sometimes she worries about being too late for the 5 minutes, and sets out with an extra 5 minutes to spare, resulting in arriving at the location 10 minutes early.
This is one of those occasions.
Fortunately, it's still pretty nice outside - slightly windy, but it's DC, whatever - so she perches on the edge of one of the metal seats outside the little cafe instead of going inside.
Jeff promised to be there on time, though there is still a small part of her that doesn't really expect him to show up at all. Not that she doesn't have faith in him! But habits are hard to break, right? That's probably it.
The minutes slowly tick by and she's bouncing her leg, hearing the swishy fabric of her skirt slide over her legs with each twitch.
At 7 minutes she begins to reconsider her whole outfit. The colour of her dress seems just too out-of-place for a casual little cafe like this.
At 8 she wonders whether it's really wise to wait outside - maybe she should go in and order a drink, to make it look as though she didn't just wait for him for 10 minutes.
At 9 she stands but doesn't really move, hovering by the metal table and straining her eyes to try to spot him in the distance.
Finally at 9 and a half minutes he's there. He doesn't spot her at first, instead staring straight ahead with a little furrow in his brow, like he's worried.
And she's sort of glad he doesn't see her, 'cause it gives her a little time to just watch him. Watch him and listen to her own heartbeat (it's suddenly so very loud in her ears, echoing in her head) and. And just. Love him.
She loves him.
It occurs to her as naturally as a simple observation about the weather.
It's true. She loves him and she used to love him and maybe she didn't for a while or maybe she never stopped, but nevertheless she loves him now and he's here, with her, really here, and perhaps in the not-too-distant future she'll get a chance to share this revelation with him.
The thought gives her shivers.
Jeff's eyes find hers, locked even over the short distance, and he shoots her a little smile as he makes his way over.
She is unsure of what to do with her hands, so leaves them twitching at her sides, pulling at her skirt and plucking at nonexistent threads.
"Sorry." Is his first word. "I thought we were gonna meet at 6?"
"Oh! Yeah. Sorry - I accidentally got here early."
"What a uniquely Annie Edison problem."
"Ha. Yeah."
"Um." He ducks his head like he's self-conscious or something, which totally doesn't make sense because he looks amazing. She likes to think she knows him well enough by know to know that he might just have spent as much time picking out an outfit as she did.
He looms over her, not saying anything, and she has to kind of crane her neck a little to see him but their eyes meet anyway and she loves him, she loves him, she loves him.
She's in grave danger of saying as much when he clears his throat. Moment over.
"We should, uh. Go in?"
"Sure, sure."
It's awkward because of course he had to stop it - these kinds of things happen a lot (happened a lot?) and most of the time it is him who backs out first.
But then, this time doesn't exactly feel like that. It's awkward, yes, but more of a mutual sort of awkwardness - what just happened, what is currently happening, isn't just one-sided. She isn't imagining things.
Its just a cafe get-together, nothing fancy, nothing official. They order drinks. He offers to pay. She politely declines. They sit. They sip. They say nothing for a while until they feel comfortable enough to break the silence.
"So."
"So."
"We should probably…"
"Yeah."
"I missed you." He runs a hand through his hair, destroying the undoubtedly carefully crafted style.
"I missed you, too."
"Annie…" He cuts himself off with a weary sigh. "What's the agenda here? We need to talk, I know that, but - what first?"
"First?" Seeing him all wound up like this is significantly less amusing than she always thought it would be.
"Yeah. Like, last time we called - last week - you said we had to talk about - about Grace - before anything else. Happened."
"Uh-huh." She shifts in her seat. So. That.
In all honesty, she's forgotten everything she wanted to say. At the moment she doesn't particularly want to talk, or sit in a dead cafe where the empty atmosphere just makes everything seem so much more awkward.
She wants - has wanted, ever since he arrived, really - to touch him. And kiss him and feel his hands cup her face and run around DC with him and. Um. Other things.
Later.
"Um. Grace. It wasn't… You shouldn't - ugh."
"We don't have to - I mean, if you don't want to-"
"No. Just." She sighs. "Part of me knows I should scold you for spontaneously dumping her. Like Britta would. Female solidarity and all that. But I also… I don't know. It's selfish, but I'm also sort of happy you broke up with her, for-" For what? For her? Is it reasonable for her to hope that much? "For - To come here."
He nods, slowly, pensively. "Look: My whole, uh, relationship with Grace, was just… It wasn't real, for me, anyway. I just sort of - got with her, 'cause it seemed like the thing I should be doing. Y'know, accept my life and my age and everything that happened, everyone who left, and try to finally… I don't know. Become an adult."
"Was she okay with it?" She winces at her own choice of words. Of course Grace wouldn't be okay with it. Even if the relationship was only fleeting, break ups are always hard.
"She was alright, I think. A little mad at first, but she cooled down. Said she was glad I ended it before she introduced me to her kid."
"Ah."
"I just - I felt bad, 'cause I thought she was maybe more invested into…it… than I was." He looks up, stares her straight in the eye for a moment before downcasting his eyes back to the sticky table. "Honestly, the entire time I was with her, all I could think about was you. And I thought that might go away after a while, but then it just became more and more frequent, and…" He shrugs his shoulders helplessly, and, yeah - she really, really wants to touch him right about now.
"I thought about you, too, you know."
He shoots her a tiny smile, almost bashful. A smile that tips her over the edge, has her sliding her hand across the gross table and meeting his.
Jeff is almost permanently in a state of disbelief about the state of his life. Usually, this is a negative thing - he can hardly believe that, after everything, he is stuck teaching at Greendale Community College.
Other times - very, very rare times, mind you - it all seems more positive. Right now, for example, he can hardly believe that, after everything, he is on a date with Annie Edison.
And it is a date. And there was some confusion about that, but thankfully that got cleared up after the first 15 minutes. Annie likes labels, after all, and contrary to popular belief, he doesn't have much of an aversion to them, himself.
It's not exactly what he was expecting when he stalked through the airport, some time earlier. Ever since their last phone call - the night before his journey - he had, privately, been building up to rejection. He imagined the scenario so many times in his head that, when he concentrated hard enough, he could practically hear her saying the words. Sweet apologies and explanations of misunderstandings and it's not you, it's me.
But now he's sitting across from her in some dingy cafe, draining the last dregs of his cheap coffee, watching her talk about her latest intern assignment and basking in the silent knowledge that this probably won't be the last experience of this kind that they'll share.
There's potential for more.
There will be more.
It just seems to make sense that she goes with him when the cab pulls up outside. It was the most natural step, what with the handholding and lingering glances and completely-adorable-oh-my-god tiny little smiles.
In fact, it's only when they're sitting in the back of the black cab, watching the other cars fly by and the buildings rush back, that it actually hits her.
She's going back to his hotel room. The thought suggests itself in a calm sort of voice.
This is definitely the kind of thing she would freak out about, a couple of years back. A couple months, even.
But right now, the realisation comes with an acceptance. This is what makes sense. This is what is happening. This is what should happen.
"Are you freaking out just now?" He punctuates this with quirk of one eyebrow, clearly trying to convey sarcasm.
"Mm. No. Maybe." At the small flash of panic in his eyes, she hastily adds: "Not about you. Or - or this. Just. I don't know."
"We can get out, if you want. I could walk you back to your apartment."
"No." It comes out harsher than she had intended, but no matter. "I don't. I mean, I want this. Really." she squeezes his hand, loosely clasping her own, and it's enough to settle the matter, for now.