The Drop is loud tonight. In an effort to draw in new clientele they've added a DJ and a dance floor. Paige is not in the mood. With Dale on the run, and the fate of Graceland uncertain, she feels betrayed her last vestige of familiarity would dare change. She heads to the bar where it's quieter, and grabs the stool next to Mike who's been nursing the same beer all night. Paige gives him a long lingering look as he sits facing the bar taking long sips from his drink. He's quiet tonight.
"You don't look at me like you used to."
The statement surprises them both. It's as though the words came out of nowhere. Well not nowhere. She's been noticing it for a while now. At first she felt too guilty to look at him, so she didn't notice. Then she did notice, but she attributed it to his drug use. But now Mike was clean, and he still didn't look at her the way he used to. She's beginning to worry he may never look at her that way again. Still, she wasn't expecting to say anything about it. There was so much they didn't talk about, why would she say that?
"What?" Mike asks, turning his head slightly, clearly just as startled by her blunt observation as she.
"You used to give me this look. I don't know how to describe it. It was like a look you only had for me. Charlie and Johnny mentioned it to me, but I never really noticed. That was just how you always looked whenever I saw you, so I thought it was how you normally looked, y'know? I really didn't realize it, until it was gone." Paige admits, stumbling over her words.
"I look at you." Mike says evenly. Even as he says the words his eyes are closed and he raises his beer to his lips to take another swig.
"Not like you used to." Paige argues.
"Well… Things have changed." Mike says simply, beginning to focus intently on peeling the label off his bottle.
"Right. Of course." Paige says awkwardly, bringing herself down from the bar stool and preparing to walk away. "Forget I said anything."
She can't believe she was stupid enough to bring it up. They hadn't talked about, well them, in months. Not since she'd asked him what she meant to him and he'd told her that stupid fox story. So much had happened since then, but they'd never spoken of it again.
His hand on her wrist stops her from leaving and she looks down to where he's holding her.
"Do you want me to look at you?" He's looking at her now. Not with the look, just looking confused and tired.
"No. I mean… I don't know. I just, I miss it sometimes. Not that I think we should get back together, I mean we were a disaster-" Paige babbles, and Mike nods stoically. He lets go of her wrist and turns back to his beer.
"Yeah…" He says dejectedly, his shoulders slumped.
"It's why I slept with you." She says, not answering his question, but somehow raising a thousand more. His eyebrows scrunch together and he looks even more confused than before. She continues hastily, "Yes, there were other reasons too, but mainly, it was that look."
She's dug herself in too deep to stop talking, so she figures she may as well bare it all and blame the booze later. Not that she is that drunk, but after how awkward this conversation is turning out, she had no doubt she would be soon.
"Right before you came back from DC, I was on a date and he took me to this art museum for this Frida Kahlo exhibit. I don't remember much of the art, or the guy for that matter, but there was this quote. She said, Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic." Paige smiles softly at the memory of the moment she first knew she wanted to be with Mike, "And I realized, the only person who ever looked at me that way was you."
Mike stares up at her, but the sadness in his eyes seems to cover any longing that used to be there.
"Sorry. I'm a little drunk. I'm not looking to change anything between us, I'm glad we're friends or whatever again, I just…" Paige takes another swig of her now empty beer and finishes lamely, "I just thought you should know."
Grabbing her new beer, she turns to leave Mike at the bar to go recover some of her dignity. She needs about two more shots and a dance with a stranger. That should do the trick.
"I still think you're magic." Mike says softly. Over the loud beat of the music, she doesn't hear his soft confession as she walks away.
"What's got you down, Mikey?" Charlie asks, coming up behind Mike, sitting down in Paige's chair and running her fingers through his hair playfully. He seems to be brooding tonight.
"Nothing." He doesn't put much effort into the lie, and his eyes drift in Paige's direction on the dance floor. Charlie follows his gaze knowingly and nods.
"So you finally going to tell me what happened with you two?" Charlie asks, having never heard the full story. Obviously something big went down between the two agents, but neither talked about it.
"Same thing that always happens these days. I ruined everything." Mike takes another swig of his drink. "I used to be good, y'know? Now… everything I do ends up hurting people."
"You're still good, Mikey. Sometimes we try our best and people get hurt." Charlie assures him.
"I'm a junkie." Mike says bitterly.
"Have you taken drugs today?" Charlie demands.
"No, of course not!" Mike scoffs.
"Yesterday?" Charlie follows up.
"No!" Mike says, a little offended at what she's implying.
"Anything stronger than this beer since you detoxed?" Charlie asks, picking up his Miller lite he'd been nursing all night and shakes it at him.
"No." Mike says, softly now seeing what she's doing.
"Then you're not a junkie. You're in recovery." Charlie says. She nods out to where Paige is dancing in the middle of where a crowd of men are forming around her, none of whom are brave enough to approach her, "You don't think that's a good enough reason to stay clean?"
"It's not that." Mike says, gazing over longingly as Paige danced.
"Then what?" Charlie asks.
"I don't trust myself." Mike admits.
"Listen sad-eyes, I know you're crazy about that girl. So you've made mistakes. So what? It's not over until you stop trying."
"Is that what happened with Briggs?" Mike turns the attention away from himself and back to Charlie.
"You let me worry about Briggs. We're talking about you here, Mikey. Do you love her?" Charlie voices the words no one else has been brave enough or blunt enough to say.
"Yeah." Mike admits easily, "That's why I have to let her go. Everything I touch turns to shit."
"Well that's a load of crap." Charlie says bluntly. "If you love her, just tell her. Life's too short. Y'know?"
"It's not that simple." Mike sighs, his fingers clenching around the bottle.
"It could be if you just told her." Charlie argues.
"You have no idea. Nothing is ever simple with us." Mike says bitterly.
"So who ended things? You or her? Did you two ever officially break up?" Charlie asks, and Mike thinks back to the moment Sid Markum told him it was Paige who gave him up. They were probably over sometime before that, as much as Mike hates to admit it, but up until that moment he had hope she would forgive him.
"We were never officially together." Mike laughs hollowly, staring into his empty beer bottle as though more will magically appear. When Charlie fixes him with a hard not-buying-it glare, he sighs, "I… I did something. I did a lot of things… I messed up Charlie."
"So go fix it." Charlie says bluntly.
"I can't." Mike whines. "She doesn't want me… not anymore. I blew it."
"Ugh. You two are pathetic." Charlie rolls her eyes grabbing her drink and standing up in a huff.
"Finally something we agree on- Where are you going?"
"I'm going to fix it!" Charlie calls back over her shoulder as she goes to talk some sense into the other party.
"Charlie no! Leave it! It's fine! Fuck, there she goes." Mike drops his head into his arms. This was just not his year.