Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Devil Wears Prada. These belong to others, as do many other very fun things. I borrow them for my own entertainment (though perhaps not the entertainment of others!

Author's Note: This is for mxrollkr - thank you for your excellent prompt. I used its structure as my basis but added in a liberal dollop of my own twists! For those reading allielivvy's version, I have ensured our storylines are rather sufficiently different...

2007

New YorkPriestly Townhouse

"Wow." More than the unusually deferential tone was the surprisingly reverent manner in which Caroline closed the book, her hand automatically smoothing the hardback cover.

"I know." Cassidy ran her fingertips across the brightly coloured picture on the front of her copy, unlike Caroline having chosen not to remove the sleeve.

"So is it just me or...?"

"Nope." Pointing to the flame red hair of the depicted characters, Cassidy confirmed, "It's like the guy that wrote this practically knows us."

"Do you think he's someone Mum has met?" Caroline clicked the bookmarked webpage on her iMac, sighing as the photo of the handsome, curly-haired, young man whose face was stretched into a lopsided grin popped up almost immediately.

"Wasn't he like a chef before he wrote this? And not a very successful one either. When exactly would she have met him?"

"Yeah, but he is famous now."

"Mum doesn't know everyone famous, you know." Giggling, Cassidy threw a pillow at Caroline's head, her sister catching it in mid-air and throwing it right back.

"Well, looks like the book signing is still on. We all set?"

"Doctor's note—check, cash—check, books—check. We are good to go."

"This is going to be the best thing since Harry Potter," Caroline grinned.

Clutching the newly returned pillow to her chest, Cassidy opened the book to the inscription, flopping backwards with a sigh. "It's so romantic though… that he refuses to tell anyone who the mystery woman is. And everyone wants to know. I mean, seriously, he's been asked like a thousand times."

"Maybe it's just that the right person hasn't asked," Caroline sighed dreamily into the distance.

Unable to resist good-natured teasing, especially when her sister was wearing that moon-eyed expression, Cassidy laughed, "Yeah. Maybe if you ask tomorrow, he'll tell you it's for his mother or something and that you're the girl he's been waiting for all his life…"

"Oh shut up." Launching herself onto the bed, Caroline grabbed for her sister's weak spots, mercilessly tickling her under the ribs and knees.

"Parlay! Parlay!"

"God, aren't you over your Pirates phase yet?"

Sticking out her tongue, Cassidy mimicked, "God, aren't you over your Nate phase yet?"

After several more moments of playful squirming, Caroline announced, "Truce?"

"Truce."

Flopping down beside her sister, she stared at her in contemplation. "You know what's weird though…"

"What?"

"I mean, if the book is really based on us then the queen is…"

"None other than Miranda Priestly?"

"Yeah." Losing her smirk, Caroline added bitterly, "He's not really met her then, has he? Or he wouldn't have written her like that." Picking at a non-existent thread in the bedspread, she stared off to the side, her jaw firming. "I hate them, you know. Page Six… Celebs Now… all the other trashy columns…"

"Well, you know it's not really about us, right? The book, I mean. But it's a super thought." Stilling Caroline's plucking fingers with her own, Cassidy assuaged her unspoken worries with a gentle squeeze and a quiet, "She will find someone again, I bet you anything. Someone who sees her exactly the way he does."

The Plaza Hotel

Measuring the length of his hotel room with a nervous pace, Nate wondered why he wasn't feeling better given that up until a few months ago he wouldn't have even entertained the thought of eating at The Plaza, never mind envisaged a week's stay in its luxurious penthouse suite. Rocking backwards on his heels as he came to a standstill in front of the full length mirror, he mouthed, "Come on, Nate. Come on. It's just a book signing. You can do this. You CAN do this."

"You'd bloody well better do this." The almost soundless snick of the hotel room lock was lost in the nasal whine of his hired publicist. "You take the rough with the smooth, kid. You want to be dining at The Lion, you need to do the dirty work too."

"What if I mess it up?" Even saying it out loud sent a bead of sweat trickling down Nate's already clammy back.

"Relax. It isn't the Spanish Inquisition. It's just a bunch of kids and housewives looking to buy whatever crap you're trying to sell them. Remember, the hard part is already in the bag."

"Yeah, well, you obviously didn't know Andy when she was a kid. Or her mother," Nate muttered darkly.

"Look," crossing over to stand in front of him, Steve smoothed his hands over the lapels of Nate's brand-new charcoal Gucci, "she's prepped you how many times? I've been over the same stuff every day since the book launch. You got this, you know it inside out. And they love you. You are the clean-cut, as-American-as-apple-pie, boy-done-good. What's there to worry about?"

"I know." Blowing out a breath, Nate stood a little straighter. "It's just—it feels wrong. I didn't do anything, Steve, that's the thing. It shouldn't be me standing here, it should be her."

"This is how she wants it, Nate. Just concentrate on the adoring audience out there. Oh yeah, and the big bucks Skein & Wright are raking in. They signed three more authors this week. The publishing house is happy, they are happy," Steve indicated in the vague direction of the sidewalk several stories below. "And she's happy too, so…" Leaving the rest unspoken, he finished with a thumping shoulder pat which nearly forced Nate to stumble sideways. By the time he'd righted himself, Steve was already at his customary place—right next to the crystal decanter of Scotch sitting on the bar.

"She isn't happy though, is she?" Nate muttered, mostly to himself.

"You a psychic now?" Barely raising a carefully styled eyebrow cemented in place by a recent injection of Botox, Steve downed two fingers of amber liquid in one gulp.

"Don't have to be. You'd know too if you'd spent the last twenty years being her friend. Or if you'd actually bothered to get to know her… at all."

"I represent the author of The Magic of Vespia. As far as the general public is aware, that's you, Nate Cooper. Unless you are ready to announce otherwise – and for everybody's sake, you'd better not be – as far as I am concerned, Andy Sachs doesn't even exist."

The Offices of Runway Magazine

"Have you seen this abomination?" Unceremoniously flinging down a newspaper on top of Nigel's layout, Emily stared at him, head slightly cocked, foot tapping impatiently at the too leisurely rise from his bent stance over the table.

"Yes, Emily. To us in the hallowed circles this is known as printed press. Incredibly, this archaic method of communication has been around for some time. You might want to look it up if you'd like to make some sort of progress in your chosen field." Having delivered his offhand response, Nigel slid the paper to the side, bending down once more to examine the minor imperfections in the spread out photographs.

Heaving a theatrical sigh, Emily drawled, "I see, as usual, it falls to me to do all the work around here. I am specifically referring to this." Shoving the article directly under Nigel's nose, she pointed to a picture of a man.

"The last time I checked, I wasn't looking for a date. And if you honestly think that Miranda would use him as a model, I would suggest you increase your daily intake of cheese to at least, oh let's say, three cubes."

"Nate Cooper." Blithely ignoring Nigel's insults, Emily carried on as if he hadn't spoken. "Do you even know who he is?"

"Should I?"

"My God, she only prattled on about him every other day!"

"She?"

"Andy!"

"Who?"

"Oh you know very well who."

"Yes. But unlike you, I like my job."

"Miranda won't be in until at least 11. You know that just as well as I do."

"Fine. So The Infamous One That Got Away had a boyfriend. And the boyfriend," glancing down Nigel disdainfully pursed his lips in a perfect imitation of his boss, "appears to have written a children's book. How… common. Now I should care because…?"

"Because he wrote the book."

"Is there an alternate method of producing literature that I am not privy to?"

"He was a struggling chef, for God's sakes. I met him once—and yes, once was bloody well enough! Cute? If you like the scruffy type. Charming? Well, you Americans do set the bar so low. But articulate? Write a book articulate? Not a hope in hell."

Gaze sharpening behind the horn-rimmed glasses, Nigel glanced up, examining Emily with the same thoroughness afforded to the layout. "Tell me that you are not suggesting what I think you are."

"If you remember, only one of them aspired to be a writer."

"Well, that would certainly be a novel way to circumvent Miranda's wrath… But you are certain how?"

Whipping out the tome from behind her back, Emily flipped it open to the beginning, reading out loud, "For the woman who altered my life. Thank you for the glimpse into your world." Snapping it shut with both hands, she spat out shrilly, "What are we going to do?"

"Well, I don't know about you but I have to touch up the Testino shoot, the November layout is a mess, and then there's the teensy matter of the upcoming December issue. And even if I had nothing on my plate other than a bag of Cheetos and a season of America's Next Top Model, I would still do exactly the same thing as I am planning to do right now - precisely zip."

"What if Miranda finds out?"

"Finds out what? What you have is conjecture… at a stretch. For all you know, Six's spent the last year in Hawaii getting her brains screwed out by a hula girl in a grass skirt. Or it could be that he," Nigel smacked a finger smack dab in the middle of Nate's forehead, "is a lot more talented than you give him credit for. But," he paused, "let us imagine for a second that you are, indeed, in possession of actual facts. Are you volunteering to tell her?"

At Emily's horrified squeak, Nigel chuckled for the first time that morning. "You've ably made my point, English. Knowledge is power, but ignorance, and more importantly being able to claim such to Miranda, is bliss. As far as we are concerned," unceremoniously tossing the paper into the nearest wastepaper basket, Nigel rapped the cover of the book with the butt end of his pencil, "Andy Sachs left Runway more than a year ago. These days - she's just another nobody that failed to make her mark."

Beauty Salon

"Sarah, Sarah!"

Staring at the child eagerly bouncing up and down two seats away as she impatiently tugged at the sleeve of the woman more than likely to be her nanny, Miranda was simultaneously overwhelmed by fond memories of the twins at that age and a flash of murderous rage that this child was compounding her already thumping headache. She truly hoped Galina was on her game today. A headache as early as 9:30 on a Monday morning did not bode well either for Runway or the population of New York.

"And then they ride dragons and one is orange and the other purple and each one of them is exactly like the twins so that they can understand them without them even needing to speak out loud and then there's this magic force field and they have to…

Trying to hush the continually babbling child, the nanny fearfully glanced at Miranda's stony face, attempting to placate her with a rueful, "Um, it's this new book, Ms Priestly. She's just crazy about it, can't get enough. I sure hope the author plans to write another one real soon because I don't know how long she's going to hold out for the sequel."

Glancing down in disdain, Miranda caught sight of the vaguely familiar gaudy cover. Remembering how engrossed the twins had been in their copies for the entire week that it had taken them to finish it, she almost allowed the girl to escape unscathed. "What is your name?"

Seeing the nanny blanch and stutter proved ample entertainment until the receptionist hastily intervened with, "Ms Semyonova will see you now, Ms Priestly."

"Hmm…" throwing one last glare at the still prattling child, Miranda strolled through to the inner sanctum of Beauty, disrobing quickly and efficiently; on the table precisely five minutes later.

"I see you are in a rush today, Miranda." The acupuncturist leisurely lined up the necessary oils and equipment.

"And yet, as always, you are not." Two sets of lips curved slightly upwards at the customary joke, the women having established a shared hate of incompetence on Miranda's second visit.

Despite her aversion of talking to the 'hired help', Miranda had found herself gravitating to this warm, middle-aged woman and her easy camaraderie, secure in the knowledge that anything mentioned in the confines of the room would never leave these walls. She'd tested Galina personally right at the start of their relationship, dropping several juicy titbits to see if they would mysteriously materialise in the gossip columns in the days that followed. She'd dropped the pretence after several visits when, in the middle of recounting an amusing story of a paramour's dropped trousers, Galina had simply laughed, flashing a dimpled smile. "When you get tired of playing your game, just let me know, alright? Until them, hell, you can make up a harem of lovers for all I care. But make the lies a little more interesting— you, of all people, must know my client list—your imagination falls woefully short of what goes on in their reality."

Since that day Miranda had found herself sharing thoughts and feelings that she had rarely ever shared with anyone else. She wasn't a fool, if word got out about the things discussed it would be embarrassing but hardly devastating. After all, what woman didn't question her actions once or twice upon a time? But always in the back of her mind were wariness, unease, and the unsettling knowledge that there was only one reason that she had felt this sudden desire to connect at all.

Andrea Sachs.

The girl who'd dared to challenge her, who'd told her right from the start that she was different—and proved that by walking away without a backward glance. Having been blacklisted from every publication, she should have simply vanished from Miranda's life just like the long procession of all the other Emilys that'd come and gone. But to Miranda's astonishment and dismay, the brunette had continued to stubbornly cling to the edges of her mind, flitting through her thoughts at the oddest times.

At first the passing reminders had been somewhat pleasant, if more than bittersweet. The girl had chosen to take the path Miranda hadn't travelled, each of her visits a niggling reminder of the layers of conscience she, herself, had shed with every upward step. Any residual pleasure had very quickly turned to irritation, then simply outright anger. How dare the girl refuse to leave entirely when she'd so ably removed her actual presence? She was nothing, not worth the precious space being wasted by her spectre. There were far more important things take into consideration: colours, patterns, trends, botched messes that her staff presented as the latest layout. Those were her life, her guide, the scruples that she'd chosen.

And in the girl's own words, it was no place for Andrea Sachs.