Shards Of Glass
She Makes Things Tolerable
So I'm finished with the show now and I have to go with the majority and say that season 4 was an overall disappointment. USS Callister and Black Museum were trying too hard to make a point and the story suffered because of it, Crocodile and Arkangel had meh endings, and Metalhead just didn't accomplish anything. Hang The DJ was certainly on par with San Junipero as far as love stories go, but it alone could not save the overall lackluster season. I think season 3 is a borderline masterpiece and it's definitely my favorite. Seasons 1 and 2 are a tossup depending on whether or not you include White Christmas as part of season 2 like Netflix does or if you consider it as it's own separate special like it was originally aired. Either way overall the show is a great, more tech version of Twilight Zone and I hope to see more in the future. Anyways here's the other fanfic idea that came immediately to me while watching. I personally didn't like The Waldo Moment overall as an episode for a lot of reasons, but Tamzin and Jamie's chemistry really stood out to me and I was rooting for them over him and Gwen. I was listening to Hurricane by Lifehouse while writing this. I hope you like it.
It was late, probably fast approaching midnight, and he couldn't find the will to pick himself up off the barstool and make his way to his room. At first his only goal had been to get plastered, drink enough that he could forget about how much his life had fallen apart over the course of the past two days. He was used to his life being shit, he was a thirty something second rate comedian who hadn't had a serious relationship in over a year, but things had finally felt like they were turning around. Waldo had been going strong for three years and the political campaigning, while not his cup of tea, had made the character infinitely more popular. A spinoff TV series would have meant a large increase in income and he could have finally moved to a nice apartment or even his own house. And things with Gwen had only just been starting but at the very least they had felt more real than just a one-night stand.
Gwen was his fault, he could take responsibility for that at least. He had overreacted and lashed out, destroying her future career in politics before it even began. It hadn't been his proudest moment and she had every right to give him the cold shoulder for the foreseeable future. Waldo on the other hand was all Jack's fault. The campaigning hadn't been something he enjoyed but he had grit his teeth and powered through it because at a certain point he had thought himself too far down the rabbit hole to back out. Jack just kept pushing though and eventually he had snapped and tried to make up for his months of foolishness in one motion. It hadn't worked, the idiotic masses had already made up their minds, and Jack was only too happy to take the spotlight for himself. He wasn't sure what he was going to do now except come back at the same time tomorrow and drink himself into a stupor again. Eventually, he managed to pick himself up and trudged off to his room.
He spent the majority of the next day going through the motions of writing out some standup material for the inevitable day when he actually needed some cash. He was about to head down to the bar for another round of self-loathing when there was a knock at his door. Even when everything in his life had been in order he hadn't gotten many visitors. He wasn't the type of person who found it easy to make new friends or had a lot of friends to begin with. And now that everything in his life had fallen apart a visitor was even less likely. Still, there were social graces that needed to be tended to so he made his way over to the door and opened it to find someone that he probably should have been expecting sooner or later come to think of it.
"Tamzin," he said as a way of greeting.
"That drink offer's still on the table isn't it," it was just a few simple words, but standing there, leather jacket wrapped around her like a suit of armor, with more poise than he could ever hope to muster Tamzin was perhaps the only one that could manage to put a smile on his face at this point. "Or were you content with your moping."
"No, no," he said. "It's definitely still on the table."
"Just let me get a quick change of clothes," in truth he had been planning on just heading down in the simple grey T-shirt and jeans that he already had on, but she didn't need to know that. He traded up to a blue button up and pair of khaki colored pants that he hoped didn't look too much like he had pulled them out of the back of his closet. A quick check of his hair and spattering of cologne and he was marginally satisfied that he didn't look like a complete slob.
"Somebody cleaned up," she said smirking when he reopened the door.
"Trust me," he replied. "This is far from cleaned up."
They made their way down to the small hotel bar and settled onto the comfortable furniture in the center; the same place he had met Gwen but he was trying not to dwell on that.
"So, no emails tonight," he said trying to break the ice.
She let out a soft laugh at that before hitting him in the shoulder.
"I don't spend all of my time reading emails you know," she said still recovering.
"I'd imagine not," he said. "How else would you have time to make those information packets?"
That got another round of laughter before she said, "Information packets you never even read."
"What can I say," he said. "I like to wing it."
This was how it always was with her. People thought almost everything that Waldo said or did was hilarious, he had gained popularity for a reason after all, but while that kind of recognition felt good especially at first it had always sowed the seeds in the back of his mind that they only found the character funny and not him. The unimpressed responses from Jack and the rest of the production team whenever he tried to crack a joke in a meeting didn't really help matters. And of course there was the initial meeting for the Waldo spinoff where a variety of ideas to show off his repertoire were shut down in favor of more stale Waldo. When it was just him and Tamzin in the studio though, doing their thing, the smiles and laughs flowed naturally. She thought he was funny even behind the scenes, she really got him, and he'd be lying if he said that wasn't one of the things that kept him coming back every day.
"Seriously though Jamie," she said. "How are you holding up?"
"Considering my life wasn't sunshine and rainbows beforehand," he said. "At least I don't have to deal with Jack anymore."
"Amen to that," she said clinking her glass with his. "I quit too by the way."
"Really," he said.
"Yeah," she said. "I'd rather not work day in and day out at the side of a creepy, power hungry asshole."
"Miss Tamzin," he used the familiar nickname. "I do believe this calls for a toast."
"What to," she questioned.
"To saying fuck you to Jack Napier," he said raising his glass.
"Fuck you Jack," she replied raising hers.
"Fuck you Jack," he concurred before they both knocked back what remained of their drinks.
"Hey, I've been writing some new material during my self-imposed moping period," he said. "Do you want to hear some?"
"A beta test," she said smirking. "I guess I could do that."
"Cool," he said. "Let me just run up and get the manuscripts."
"I can just come up with you," she said. "It looks like we're pretty much done here anyways."
"Of course Commander," he said trying for another laugh. "You are the one in charge after all."
And that's how they ended up back in his small hotel room, her sitting on his bed listening intently and him running through what he thought was his best new material. The laughs flowed freely and for the first time since everything happened with Gwen and Jack he felt like things were actually looking up. Jack had control of Waldo now and was going to take the political ruse as far as he could and make as much money as possible along the way and the odds of Gwen talking to him after everything were slim to none. He wasn't sure when the excessive drinking and moping around his hotel room would have ended had he been left to his own devices; weeks, months probably. Since he had met her though Tamzin had always been the one person able to pull him back from the brink and keep him moving forward and now was no different. With her by his side things were never actually quite as bad as they seemed.
As far as I can tell Tamzin is a first name so I worked under the assumption that him calling her Miss Tamzin was just a nickname and not referring to it being her last name. Also, Yorkie/Kelly and Frank/Amy were both cute stories and I'm always up for an opposites attract story like what people get out of Blue/Karin, but in all honesty this is the ship that grabbed me the most. I also don't think Jamie deserved the ending he got so I decided to write something a little happier for him.