A/N: A series of one-shots based on the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours (no, I am not belatedly jumping on the Glee bandwagon, I am jumping on my mother's bandwagon as they are is one of her favourite bands. Glee was right, though, in that this is one of the greatest albums of all time, but they skipped some of the best songs). I may or may not do every song on the album, and they aren't going to be in any particular order - which you may have guessed, as Gold Dust Woman is the last track. According to Stevie Nicks, the song is actually about cocaine, but I chose to ignore that. If you haven't heard this song before, put it on. You won't regret it.
I've never done a song fic before, but ... well, see what you think.
I swear I am about two thirds of the way through the next chapter of Running on Empty, but I was in an angsty Sam-ish mood, so this had to be got out of my head first.
Rated T - a little language, and shockingly given the ep-setting, some sexual references
Gold Dust Woman
Coda - 1.07 (Yeah, I know. It's been done. But I think it's like a right of passage for any McSwarek writer. You've got to cover that scene at least once)
He sits, in his too bright, too loud, too goddamned empty house, and drinks. He'd been on beer earlier in the evening, but following Andy's (McNally's) departure, he breaks out the scotch and sits, staring at the TV without seeing what ever it is that's showing on the screen, watching the way the alcohol clings to the ice he'd put in his glass. He doesn't normally have ice with scotch this good. You shouldn't have ice with the ten year Glenfiddich he'd pulled out of the cupboard, maybe just a bit of water to bring out the flavour, but he hadn't realised that this was the bottle his hand had closed on until he'd taken his first swallow, after he'd put the ice in the glass (it's too hot for warm cheap whisky) and poured the first measure. Too late after that, he might as well keep drinking it. He'd been saving the bottle for a special occasion, and he supposes that this is a special occasion.
Rock on, gold dust woman
Take your silver spoon, dig your grave
She came to him. She came to him. And she was sober. He's always figured that if (when) they hooked up it would be him who initiated it, at the Penny, both of them three sheets to the wind, a tangle of hands and limbs, tasting of liquor and heat. Well, he knows what she tastes like now, and part of it is definitely heat.
Heartless challenge
Pick your path and I'll pray
Problem is, he knows why she came here, came to him.
You want to talk?
No.
She shot a man. She shot a man, and that breaks something in you. Of course it does. You should be more worried if it doesn't. But he didn't tell her that, hadn't said anything else, his brain had, in fact, completely shut down the second her mouth found its way to his, her hand burning on his chest, leaving a brand. He half pulled, half pushed her to his bedroom, ricocheting off the hallway walls because they couldn't stop kissing and then it was all about his mouth on hers, and skin, as much skin as he could find and reach touch, because what he wanted was to feel all of her.
What she wanted was just to feel.
Wake up in the morning
See your sunrise loves to go down
Then the lights came on.
I guess that means everything's back to normal
The lights came on, and they had the awkward morning after before there was anything to be after. He came back into the room to find her pulling her clothes back on, unable to look at him. Moment gone.
Yeah, I guess everything goes back to normal.
Sometimes he curses that mouth of his. He should have made her stay, made her actually talk to him. She'd been crying before she'd arrived, he'd been able to see that before she'd kissed him. He should have made her talk to him (how hard could it have been, to make her talk?). Or at least made her sit and have a drink, let her down the scotch until she'd passed out or started babbling, or started crying. Whatever it took.
Instead he'd made one of his usual I-don't-care smart-mouthed comments and let her walk out. And all it meant was that they were probably both drinking alone.
Lousy lovers
Pick their prey but they never cry out loud
Cry out
Or that she'd gone straight to Callaghan. He knows, of course, why she didn't go to Callaghan in the first place. Callaghan was being a good little detective and helping out at the crime scene.
Good little detective, pretty awful human being. And a terrible boyfriend.
He shakes his head, gulps his drink, pours another. Callaghan wouldn't have let her lose herself in him. Callaghan would have stopped her, would have made her talk, held her while she cried, given her a glass of wine, probably run her a freakin' bubble bath.
The second drink is gone faster than the first.
Well, did she make you cry, make you break down,
Shatter your illusions of love
And is it over now, do you know how
Pick up the pieces and go home
He can't remember the last time he got drunk over a woman. He can't remember the last time he gave a damn about a woman who wasn't a family member. Mind you, he's never had someone walk out on him before, especially not before, or during …
It's usually him doing the leaving, afterwards. He's not one for cuddling as a rule and has, on occasion, thrown on his clothes while his former partner is still drowsing in the after glow. Get in, get out – no muss, no fuss. That's been his style for a while now, but maybe he just hasn't had the right partner.
McNally doesn't know the meaning of no fuss; all heart that one, cares too much.
He should have made her talk.
Rock on ancient queen
Follow those who pale in your shadow
She met Monica today. Jesus, but that couldn't have been more of a clusterfuck. McNally, curiosity peaked, Monica seeing through him in roughly twenty three seconds, how he'll never know.
So that's your rookie. She is pretty.
She's not. 'Pretty' is a word for little girls in sparkly dresses, 'pretty' is a word women use to put others down. Andy McNally is beautiful. And while she may be his rookie, while he likes thinking of her as his rookie. She most certainly isn't his. This evening made that abundantly clear.
Sweetheart, you're not my type.
And she's not, because while he likes his women smart and mouthy, he tends to like them blonde and curvy, not brunette and athletic. Not that McNally doesn't have curves – curves he'd had his hands on earlier in the evening.
He bites back a groan, takes another swig of whisky – straight from the bottle this time.
How the hell was he going to manage in a squad car with her now?
Rulers make bad lovers
You better put your kingdom up for sale
Up for sale
It had been bad enough before, with her constant chatter driving him up the wall. Now, now, he's going to be stuck with the memory of her mouth under his every time he looks at her, the taste of the curve of her neck every time he catches her scent, the little sigh she makes any time something particularly pleases her every time she opens her mouth to say something. It's going to make him bad tempered – more so than usual – because he's going to be covering up how badly her wants to grab her, take her the whole time.
And he's her training officer.
He's not much for rules, hasn't every really seen the point, but he does kind of get this one. If they'd slept together the first week, and that had been all it was, then maybe it wouldn't have mattered that much – you know, if they were both adults about it, but now …He's in a position of power over her, he should be someone she can trust, and while she may have come to him this evening, while she may have kissed him, she's got a temporary insanity pass because she killed a man. He should have stopped her, and she didn't, because what she was doing was something he wanted.
Now, it may be all screwed up.
They've spent too much time together, now, for a no-strings hook up, and while he didn't want a partner, she has a way of getting under your skin, that Andy McNally. He likes her, actually likes her as a person – not something he expected of the rookie who screwed his eight month UC op – burned him so badly he may never be able to go UC in the city again, and he cares about her in more, he takes a long pull on the whisky bottle, than just a professional capacity. A lot more.
He realises that he can't remember the last time he cared about a woman, in anything other than a professional or a familial capacity.
And he just had to go and pick his rookie, who's already gotten herself involved with the golden boy detective of the 15th, didn't he?
Well, did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love
Well, is it over now, do you know how
Pick up the pieces and go home
It's damned good whisky. Shame he doesn't have the damned good woman to go with it.