A/N: My second Perry Mason fic in one week. I'd call that 'bitten by the bug' - which is very inconvenient because I ought to be researching and planning my NaNo! Luckily, my NaNo partner in crime Batwings79 gave this ficlet the once over and I am so pleased she did. I hope you'll enjoy this, too!
1.
She's worked for Mr Mason less than a month and she's already figured him out.
He's a heartthrob with a distinct 'knight-in-shining -armor'-complex. He is an exceptional criminal defense lawyer who lives mainly on steak, french fried potatoes and coffee. He's generous, competitive and sometimes mercurial.
He is loyal to a fault. There will be times in the future where she'll benefit from Perry Mason's loyalty. Other times she'll be made the victim of it.
He bends the law until it almost snaps and he works tirelessly to have his innocent clients acquitted. He works fearlessly and hard and he expects nothing but the best from those he trusts enough to employ.
And if she's not careful, she'll fall head over heels in love with him.
2.
She's fallen asleep on his shoulder. She is starting to become an expected, warm, welcome weight these days. They have celebrated the acquittal of his most recent client with some martinis, a bottle of red and cognacs poured on top of steaks, grilled asparagus and lyonnaise potatoes. He's twirled her around the dance floor a few times (she makes him look like a more than capable dancer, but it's really because she makes it so easy; she always follows and leads when appropriate) and she's held her own in court on less than two hours of sleep.
He doesn't know how she does it - she is the only secretary he has ever had who can keep up with him. As long as he keeps her fed. Something she has in common with Paul.
But Paul doesn't make him want to give up Laura (even though Paul heartily disapproves of his relationship with the ambitious, gorgeous attorney) and Paul doesn't give him a warm smile out of nowhere that makes him tingle in unmentionable places.
Besides. Paul's coffee is absolutely undrinkable.
3.
She's not taken a message from Laura in months when a wedding invitation arrives for Perry and he doesn't care that she sees who it's from.
"Do you want to be my 'plus one'?" he asks and she smirks at him.
"I don't think so, Chief," she answers, taking back the envelope from him.
He beams at her; those dimples would charm any unsuspecting girl. But she's neither unsuspecting nor much of a girl anymore.
"Thanks for asking, though."
She is oddly relieved that Laura will be far away in Denver from now on. Laura always made her feel like they were in some kind of competition and she always managed to throw some acidic barbs Della's way.
"I'll send them a telegram," Perry says and she knows that he expects her to send one in his name.
"Gift?" she asks, her pencil hovering over her notepad.
"If they are registered anywhere. Whatever you think best."
She nods.
It will be decades before Della has to deal with Laura again.
4.
Her eye rolls, 'fine, just fine's' and their adventures: all of them make him more and more certain:
Della is the one.
He calls her 'Young Lady' and drinks her coffee and watches her frown at her notes from across the courtroom and listens to her stomach rumble when they've been neglecting meals. He answers her questions when they are brainstorming a case and he furtively kisses her hair when she falls asleep against his shoulder in the car.
She's kissed him in the law library. Luckily Paul knocked before they could do anything too foolish.
Would it be foolish? he wonders.
He can imagine coming home to her every evening. He can see her with their children. He has ever increasing trouble pushing the thought of making love to her from his mind. Especially when he watches her rinsing out their coffee cups at three o'clock in the morning in her stockinged feet, stifling a yawn.
He'd marry her in a flash, but he knows she'll refuse his offer.
Which doesn't stop him from asking her a fair few times
5.
They are being discreet (even if they end up in the gossip columns now and then; even if badly taken pictures of them dancing or dining pop up in Spicy Bits) and they limit their risks as much as possible. She's got two secret weapons in that battle: time and a diaphragm. Of course the diaphragm wasn't easy to obtain (doctors are much more judgmental than their Hippocratic oath would have you think) but it has made their lives much easier.
She wants to go on their adventures and she wants his love. She knows he'll be bored by a homelife. As will she. She doesn't allow herself to dwell on what a child of theirs would look like or how it might feel to be Perry's wife. That's not for them. It's not who they are.
They hide from the police, provide Paul with a steady income and save innocent people's lives by letting justice prevail. They make love in the backseat of the car and against the wall of the law library in the middle of the night while they await a call from Paul. They hide lovebites, steal kisses and throw furtive glances.
it's enough. It has to be enough.
6.
The first cracks start appearing when they give Leander back to his mother and he cannot comfort her. More cracks follow when he takes an engagement to lecture in Georgetown for a year.
She is the perfect secretary and he cannot solve half his cases without her, but their former intimacy dwindles.
The final crack comes in the form of Paul's unexpected death.
Theoretically they would have been the perfect people to help each other through their shared grief, but as often happens they drift further and further apart.
When the offer for a justiceship comes, Perry takes it; a smooth, painless way out for the both of them.
But every night he lies awake in his San Francisco bedroom, it's Della he thinks of. Della who works for another man.
Della, who he misses like the air he breathes.
7.
The moment he takes her in his arms she feels safe. She cries and he soothes her simply by holding her against him.
He always was a broad-chested dreamboat and he is a big man now, with a beard that hides his dimples. But his eyes are the same, his voice hasn't changed and he trusts her implicitly during the trial. After Paul Jr. drops them off at her house they stand in the hall eying each other awkwardly until she takes his hand.
He smiles at her brilliantly and she blushes; wonders if they can pick up where things were still good for them. When his eyes followed her hands when she straightened her stockings and when the mere scent of him made her reckless.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" she asks, her voice deep and slightly husky.
"Della," he says and pauses briefly before continuing: "I've been longing for a cup of your coffee for eight years."
8.
They had taken their time - undressed the other slowly and caressed new-found imperfections with cool fingertips. They kissed for endless moments. He ran his hands unhurriedly over her body (softer, but familiar) and held her to him before she made him put on a condom and told him they'd talk about that some more tomorrow.
She had taken as she gave and she drove him to distraction. She smelled the same as she always did and the way she arched under him, her moans and chants, her fingernails scraping down his shoulders brought back memories of other times they had been in a similar position. Her heels digging into his buttocks, the way her breasts moved with his thrusts. All of it was home. All he wanted to do was to bury himself in her, to feel her surrounding him; to forget the years they had lost. To make up for them somehow.
The defense rests in his lover's bed, his lover spooned against him and his nose is in her hair when he drifts off - for the first time in eight years (or was it longer?) he sleeps easily through the night.
He wakes to a vision of loveliness standing in the bedroom doorway in a silk robe that slightly gapes to give him a tantalising view of all those curves he lavished with attention the night before. She is holding a cup of coffee in her hands.
"Good morning, Counselor," she says. "I seem to remember I promised you a cup of coffee."
He scrambles to sit up and takes the cup from her.
"What time is it?" he asks.
Della smiles (that secret smile of hers) and softly kisses his lips.
"It doesn't matter. You don't have to go."
And he doesn't. He never leaves her again.