Length of Relationship: 9 weeks
It's a balmy Thursday in the early evening and he's sitting on the airplane, waiting for the final passengers to board the flight, flicking through his twitter feed and trying his hardest not to think about her. Or more specifically how he left her. He can't believe that he forgot to say good bye and he feels like a dick. To be fair, it's not that he forgot to say goodbye all together, it's just that he forgot until it was too late.
He waited until 20 minutes before he had to jump in a cab to start wandering over to her office only to have the sudden and sickening realisation that she was on the air doing her four o'clock market wrap up.
He walks into the control room and waits for Zane to call a commercial break and then all but runs into the studio, "Hey," he greets her as he nears the news desk.
"Hi," she looks up at him, a bit surprised, "I couldn't find you before I came in here," she tells him, and now he feels worse.
He shakes his head, "yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot you had to be on the air," he tells her, it's a shitty excuse but it's the truth.
She pauses a moment and he can tell that Zane is talking in her ear about something, she turns back a moment later, "you have to go now?" she asks, she looks a bit disappointed.
"Yeah, in a minute," she nods and looks down at her papers, "I'm sorry, I wanted to say good bye properly," he tells her.
She gives him a look that clearly reads, 'if you wanted to say good bye properly you'd have come and found me before I was sitting in front of a bunch of cameras,' but instead she says, "It's fine, have a good weekend, I'll see you Monday morning." Just from that he knows it is anything but fine, because she knows that he actually gets back on Sunday night at 6, and had been planning on coming back to her place.
"It's not fine, but I'll make it up to you when I get home," he tells her, not sure what else to offer.
She doesn't really react to his offer, scribbling something on the paper in front of her, suddenly she gets that far away glance again, "thirty seconds," she tells him and taps her ear piece, indicating that he needs to get out of her shot.
"Ok," he takes the hint, he pauses just a second and then reaches over and rubs a thumb across the back of her hand resting on the desk, he knows she hates PDA in the office, and he respects that, but he just wants her to know he's sorry, "I'll miss you," he offers.
She looks up at him, "yeah, you too," she says, but there's no real emotion in it so he excuses himself, and he hears her broadcast kick back in as he walks out the studio door.
So now he's sitting on a plane, watching people still filter on and try to jam their luggage into the overhead lockers, and he's so mad at himself because this is the opposite of how he wanted to treat her. He cares about her, so much more than he had ever expected to, and he misses her already, he's dreading the next four days without seeing her at all. Then suddenly his phone buzzes in his hand, it's her.
He answers and raises it to his ear, not sure what to expect, probably a telling off if she has any sense. "Hi," he offers cautiously.
She pauses a moment and he panics, "you should still come over on Sunday night," she tells him.
He feels some relief flood in, "Okay," he tells her
"I was annoyed," she explains, although she shouldn't have to, "I wish you would have said good bye"
"I know, I'm sorry," he tells her again, not that the platitudes are really worth very much, but he really does feel terrible, and I wants her to understand that.
"It's fine," she reiterates, a little more sympathetically then she had in the studio.
He tries again, "it's not fi.."
"It's fine, I know it was a mistake," she cuts him off, "I'll just miss you," she says sadly.
"You could still join me," he offers, not holding out much hope, but still wishing she'd come keep him company on what is bound to be a long four days with his family.
"No," she insists, although to his surprise her resolve sounds as if it has weakened incredibly with his departure.
"Why?" he pushes.
"Its your grandmothers 85th birthday," she tells him as if that's a reason and not an unrelated statement.
"Yeah, so? She'd love to meet you," his lips are curling up at the corners, and he thinks there's a chance he might just change her mind.
"We've only been dating a couple of months, I don't really think it's appropriate," in past relationships he would have agreed wholeheartedly, in fact he hasn't taken a single girlfriend home to Pittsburgh. A few of them had met his parents or siblings when they came to visit him in Manhattan. Sloan was the only woman he had ever considered, let alone tried to convince, to come back with him.
Deciding to try a more forceful approach, he tells her, "don't be ridiculous, I'm going to book you a flight."
"Don," She warns, but there is no apprehension in her voice, in fact, if anything, she just sounds a little excited.
"Please come, it'll be nice!"
There is a momentary pause, "ok," she agrees.
She organises with Mackenzie to skip her segment on NewsNight the following evening so that she can go straight to the airport and catch a 6:00pm flight to Pittsburgh after her wrap up.
Don picks her up at the airport a couple of hours later, he's borrowed his sisters SUV, and with it he somehow got given his sisters 6 year old daughter. It's probably a good thing, because when he meets Sloan at the arrivals lounge she's clearly incredibly nervous about being there. But Ruby is the most affable child he knows, and gives Sloan a big hug, telling her she looks just like Mulan and even Sloan finds that funny. As they walk out of the airport, he pulls her suitcase with one hand, while the dark haired tot's sweaty little hands are clamped firmly onto both grown-ups. He realises that they must look incredibly domestic, it makes him a little happy.
The weekend is a whirlwind, they manage to fit 7 meals with various family members into 48 hours, and it's tiring but mostly good. His family seems to like her a lot, and several people comment on how happy he looks, which makes her swell with pride. But no family event would be complete without a few awkward moments, the worst is when his grandfather spends almost 20 minutes at the big birthday lunch talking loudly about how he hates the Japanese, only for Don's father to finally point out that, "Donald's new girlfriend is Japanese."
"Oh I'm not Japanese," she corrects politely, "I'm Vietnamese," she tells the long table of relatives who are all looking incredibly embarrassed.
"Jesus Christ, don't even get me started on that lot," he proclaims to a chorus of groans from his relatives, "what website did he buy you off of?"
The table erupts with outrage, but Don notices Sloan laughing next to him, as does everyone else as they eventually calm down, "as if you could afford me," she chuckles to him.
His grandfather cracks a grin, "I like this one Donny, she's sharp," he proclaims, as if Don ever needed anyone to tell him Sloan was quick witted.
She's a hit, his mother loves her, or more his mother loves the fact that Don clearly likes her enough to have brought her home. The woman who already has six grandchildren is desperate for more, and as he is actually the second oldest of four and the only one yet to reproduce, she takes Sloan's presence as a part of the family as a sign of good things to come. At the airport, Ruby cries when he and Sloan (but mostly just Sloan) have to say goodbye to her, and he just has this feeling in his gut, that this will be the first of many 'family' trips that they take together.