Title: "The Detour Gets You Home"
Author: anxietygrrl at hotmail dot com
Fandom: ER
Pairing: Ray/Neela
Rated: M for sexiness
Status: WIP
Notes: Season 12 AU. Hey, kids! Let's all take a trip in our fanfic time machine!

"Everybody hates me."

He guided her up the stairs to their apartment with an arm around her waist to keep her from stumbling. Not so much because she was totally wasted, but because she was just wasted enough to keep forgetting to adjust her stride to the limited range of movement allowed by the sari.

"Nobody hates you." Between the bar, the ride home, and the short walk here, it was at least the fifth time he'd said it. "They're just...a little annoyed. They'll get over it."

"Michael hates me." She fell against the door with a little thump while he fished out his keys.

"Well...yeah, okay, I'll give you that one. And I think Pratt wants to kick you in the shins." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, and he saw her beginning to sink into what would probably be a three week pout. "You're going to have to move if you want to go inside." She was slow to react, so he put his hands on her shoulders and gently nudged her aside so he could let them in.

"He didn't have to break up with me." She kicked off her shoes and shuffled gracelessly to the couch, where she collapsed in a sullen heap.

He laughed, but immediately felt bad for it. He knew she was hurting, and it wasn't that he was unsympathetic, but for some reason all evening long he'd been fighting off an inappropriately good mood. He couldn't explain it, really. There she was, his good friend--probably his best friend--as upset as he'd ever seen her, and yet he felt strangely cheerful. He hoped it didn't show.

"I don't know, I think that's a rule, actually. Somebody leaves you at the altar, you pretty much have to break up with them." He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it over the back of the couch before settling in next to her, leaving a cushion's worth of space to accommodate her glare.

"I didn't leave him at the altar," she protested. "There wasn't even an altar. And it was at least twenty minutes beforehand! It's not like I walked out in the middle of the vows! I just...I admitted I was having second thoughts and then it all just..." She stared into the dimness of the room as if she'd find the right word floating there. "Unravelled," she said at last. "If anyone's saying I left him at the altar, that's...that's just inaccurate. Anyway, I'm the one who was dumped."

"Maybe you can clear all that up in your press release."

"Oh, you're funny. You should have been a comedian instead of a rock star."

"Yeah, I'm multitalented," he agreed with a nod. He caught her smiling, just a little flash of amusement before glumness overtook her again. "Hey," he said. "You'll be okay."

She sighed and shook her head. "We were so good together. You know? It was so...it was like a storybook. I thought we loved each other enough to make it work. I really thought...I mean I really wanted..." She blinked back tears. "He was supposed to be the one. How could it all just...fall apart?"

He looked down, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, and much less cheerful. He regretted what he said next as soon as it was out of his mouth. "Yeah, how could two perfect people not be perfect together?"

She looked more sad than hurt. "I'm not perfect," she said, as if she were admitting a failure.

"Oh, I know," he assured her.

She studied him, as best she could while still fuzzy from alcohol, and said, "You do, don't you?" He wasn't sure how to respond to that, but she saved him by continuing, "Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Michael and I didn't really know each other as well as I thought we did."

"Maybe," he offered noncommittally.

"Why does romance always have to be so difficult?" she asked. "Why can't it be easy?" She waved a hand in the space between them. "Like this?"

He stood abruptly and headed for the fridge. "Yeah, I don't know. Do you want a beer?"

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" she asked, and chuckled at her own joke.

He pulled out a mostly full six pack of Heineken and muttered, "I think I'm trying to get me drunk." While he dug around in the kitchen drawer for the bottle opener, she started musing again.

"I don't know, maybe I was trying too hard." She grabbed for a beer as soon as he thunked them down on the coffee table. "I was always putting my best foot forward with him, afraid to mess up, or be less than..." She trailed off, frowning and scrunching up her face as she strained to unscrew the pry-off cap. He sat next to her, closer this time, and leaned in to assist. His left hand steadied hers around the bottle while he popped off the top. "Thanks," she said. "I mean with you I don't care."

"Thanks," he returned.

"I thought I could be what he needed. Maybe I was just fooling myself," she concluded morosely. "I'm good at that."

"Neela. Look." She reluctantly turned to do so. "You keep saying maybe this, maybe that. But you made the right call."

"D'you think?"

"If you weren't sure, you weren't sure. What were you supposed to do, marry him anyway? It's better to figure it out now than six months or a year from now, right?"

"I suppose."

"There, see? In the long run, you did him a favor."

"Maybe," she said, without conviction. "Or maybe I just broke a good man's heart." She tipped back her beer and took a long, sulky swig.

He fidgeted a little, holding back an irritated sigh. "Tell you what, let's talk about something else for a while, get your mind off what a horrible person you are."

"That's not going to work."

"Sure it will." He paused to drink while he fumbled for a change of subject. "Pick a topic. Did you ever have any pets? What's your favorite Air Supply song? Why'd you go into medicine?"

"No pets, 'All Out of Love', and...I suppose because everyone expected it." She drifted into a quieter sort of melancholy, which had not been his goal. "And I went along. I always...go along."

"Well. Not always. Today being kind of a spectacular example."

Her lips twitched with another brief hint of a smile. "What about you?"

"'Making Love Out of Nothing at All.' Hands down." He felt a minor rush of triumph when she actually laughed.

"No, I mean, why did you want to be a doctor?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I guess..." He wanted to give her a good answer, a true answer, but he didn't want to have a discussion about it. Finally, he settled on, "Maybe because no one expected it."

After a moment, she said simply, "Oh."

"Plus," he added, with a practiced insouciant grin, "after college I didn't want to get a real job."

"Ah ha, of course." She raised an index finger as if about to make a point, and then lowered it again. They sat in easy silence for a minute, and then she turned to him, her face soft and thoughtful. "I'll bet at school you were one of those secret smart kids. Afraid people wouldn't think you were cool."

He raised his eyebrows, happily surprised. "Did you just say I was smart?"

She seemed a little stung. "I know you're smart."

"Sometimes you look at me like you can't believe I can tie my own shoes."

"Well," she acknowledged. "You're also an idiot."

He couldn't argue. "So what were you like in school?"

"I was always good at science."

"Yeah, but you were probably good at everything," he speculated. "Aced every test, student council, played three sports, prettiest girl in class..."

"No, just football and swimming," she corrected. "And I was rubbish at swimming."

"Did you know sometimes you get Britisher when you're drunk?"

"Piss off." She blinked, slowly, and tilted her head. "You think I'm pretty?"

"Uh, I..." The question angled her brows just so over her wide, liquid brown eyes. Her make-up was smudged, and her hair was a mess, loops of it coming loose from her bun and falling around her face. Her complexion was flushed from alcohol. She was a slight, warm certainty wrapped in a column of cool, crumpled silk, nestled into the corner of his couch. Altogether, in the low light of the apartment, she seemed to...she sort of glowed.

Finally he was able put a name to the thing he'd been feeling all night: it was relief. Guilty, giddy relief.

"I think you're pretty drunk," he heard himself say, and practically jumped up from his seat. "It's way too quiet in here. Want some music? I think we need some music." He faced the shelves and flipped through CDs, ignoring the dull clink of her beer bottle coming to rest on the coffee table and the rustle of her dress as she came up behind him.

"Ray."

"Yeah?" A poke between the shoulder blades got him to turn around. "Yes, jeez, what?"

"You do!" She jabbed at him again, in the chest this time. "You think I'm pretty! Admit it."

He crossed his arms and stared over her shoulder at the kitchen. "Well, yeah..." Her reaction was confusing. Sure, she was teasing him, that he got. But why would she be surprised? "I'm not blind."

"But..." She looked like a little kid trying to do a really hard math problem. "It doesn't make any sense."

"You're telling me. What are we talking about, here?"

"But you never--. If I'm the prettiest then why didn't you--? You never even tried, so I just assumed you didn't--. You'll flirt with anything with breasts!" She flung her arms out dramatically. "I have breasts. What's wrong with my breasts?"

His mouth hung open for a few seconds before he could make words come out. "Nothing! I mean. I never flirted with you? 'Cause that doesn't seem right."

"That's what I'm saying."

"Wait, did you want me to flirt with you?"

"No! Of course not. I don't know. Maybe. Once. A long time ago. That's not the point."

"Please, tell me what the point is here, 'cause I'm lost."

"The point is...the point...well I'm just curious, really, because it's not like you're discriminating, so...why not me?"

Right then, at that moment, damned if he knew. So he improvised. "Look, you know, you can just tell when someone's not interested, right? When you're not their type."

"I'm certainly not your 'type.'"

"Yeah, I know, but I actually meant that I'm not your type."

"Obviously."

"Right." He rolled his eyes. "So...there you go. And now we're buddies, so...it all worked out."

"Right," she echoed. "Yes, friends. All for the best, then."

"Sure. Pals."

"Best mates."

"Absolutely."

"Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"I just...I want to thank you. For sticking around tonight, and taking me home, and...everything."

"No problem." She was studying him again, and standing very close, as if she were expecting something. She smelled like tequila and limes, and the bathroom after she showered in the morning, layered with the fading notes of some rich, balmy perfume she'd never worn before. "It's, um. That's what I'm here for."

"Because we're best mates."

He could only nod.

"Ray."

"Yeah," he rasped. The radiator ticked. The refrigerator hummed.

"I think you're pretty, too."