Silvia is mine; sadly, Miranda and Andy are not.
Roy was waiting at the front of Elias-Clarke with the door open for both women.
Andy walked discreetly close to Miranda until they had reached the car and stepped aside to let her in.
In the car, Miranda was very fidgety. She kept twiddling her thumbs and brushing away invisible trash from her skirt. Andy impulsively placed her right hand over both Miranda's to calm them. Andy looked over at her with a smirk, but she didn't receive one in return. Instead she noticed the woman staring at her hand. Feeling insecure and slightly foolish, she hesitantly removed her hand and placed it back in her own lap. To her surprise, however, the platinum haired woman slides over to the center of the seat, reaches out to take Andy's hand and clasps both her hands around it. Then Andy receives the smirk she was looking for, but missed it because she was busy staring at their hands.
As they approached the townhouse and came to a stop, Miranda let go of the other woman's hand and slides back to her side of the vehicle. Andy started to open her door, but Miranda jerked her head towards her and swiftly grabbed her shoulder.
"Roy will open the door for you." Miranda stated.
"It's really no problem." Andy tried to brush the offer away.
"Andrea, Roy will get the door for you." The editor stated her words more firmly.
Andy simply blinked a few times and resolved to politely sit still as she waited for Roy to open her door. One knows never to argue with the force of nature that was the Editor-in-Chief of Runway. After letting Miranda out, Roy quickly stepped to the other side of the Mercedes to let Andy out. As she exited the vehicle, she directed an apologetic grimace to Roy.
The women entered the house and Miranda took Andy's coat to place it on a hanger, did the same with her own; all the while the younger woman had her head tilted to the side lightly scratching behind her ear, trying to make sense of why Miranda would be hanging up her coat. "Shouldn't I be the one doing that?" Andy was a bit confused.
"Make yourself comfortable in the study. I'll be right with you." Miranda instructed.
"Oh, I-I'm just staying long enough to make sure you're alright an-and settled." Andy shyly replied.
Miranda straightened up, though her shoulders dropped. She turned her head to the right just enough to see Andy in her peripheral vision.
"Well, you might as well go ahead and leave then because I'm fine." Miranda said with a slight whimper.
"Miranda, you know I didn't mean it like I was in a hurry or anything. I-I really do want to make sure you're alright." Andy tried to recover.
"Seems ironic how you're so interested in my well-being now. You weren't so caring that night in Paris." Miranda had turned around and started to walk towards Andy; head cocked to the side, arms folded to her chest. Though her eyes were glaring, her chin was quivering.
"M-Miranda, I…" but as Andy began her apology, Miranda suddenly began to cry in front of Andy; letting her guard fall. The editor covered her mouth with a hand and wrapped the other arm around her waist to have some control as she bent over from the sobs.
Andy's heart dropped and she instinctively lurched forward intending to catch Miranda. Instead, the fragile woman turned away and quickly trotted towards the study.
Andy's eyes followed after Miranda; her heart filled with conflicting emotions. It wasn't until Miranda sat down that Andy found the will to lurk into the room.
As Andy rounded the corner, she noticed Miranda sitting on the edge of the sofa with her head and hands between her knees.
Andy moved to sit beside her and placed her hand on Miranda's back.
They stayed in this position until the editor was ready to talk.
"I didn't think it was really this serious…" Andy thought with dread.
Miranda straightened up on the couch and let out a long sigh. With this, Andy caught the scent of whiskey and her mind raced back to that night she had first smelled that horrendous odor. The only picture that came to mind was Miranda lying at the top of the stairs looking like a discarded rag doll.
Shivers ran from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
"Andrea, what were you thinking about?" Miranda asked with her eyebrows raised.
"Um, nothing. I-I-I've-I need to go." Still in a haze, Andy rose and slowly turned to leave.
"No." Miranda spat out and lunged towards Andy, taking hold of her arm. "Stay. You must stay f-for the night, at least. It is late after all." The editor strived for a stern command, but all she could emit was a humble plea.
"Miranda, I can't just put my life on hold for you right now. I've got an article due in the morning and it's not even finished yet." Andy stated in a half-irritated and half-sympathetic voice, trying to reason with Miranda.
Miranda simply sat, a glare slowly tried to appear on her face, but was beaten by the emotions she was attempting to hide. The rims of her eyes grew red, tears threatened to spill over and her chin began to quiver again.
"Al-alright Miranda. I'll stay for one night downstairs. That's all." Andy only slightly unwillingly agreed.
Miranda sighed and a small grin crept across her lips. "Thank you."
Early the next morning, Miranda awoke to the sound of her bedroom door being shut. "Was that Andrea checking in on me?" She climbed out of bed and hurried down the steps, but by the time she was halfway down, she only caught a glimpse of brown hair floating out the front door.
"It was her, but she left without saying a simple goodbye."
With disappointment and hurt, she stood there on the steps staring at the door. Then, she relapsed into her old habit. She marched over to the liquor cabinet, pulled out a whiskey bottle and gulped down 1/4th of the strong liquid before taking another breath.
She coughed as she began trudging up the stairs back to her bedroom and flipping on the light as she re-entered the bedroom.
A few hours and a bottle of whiskey later, Miranda heard the front door open and she desperately hoped it was Andy coming back.
"Miss Miranda! It's me, Silvia!" A voice called up to her.
Miranda slouched over and ran a hand through her platinum locks.
A few minutes later, she stood up to walk to the bathroom and take a shower to clean up. As she passed the mirror, something in it caught her eye. She took a few steps back and turned to face the mirror. She looked at herself in the mirror, though she didn't see herself; she saw the mess she had become.
"A drunken mess." She whispered aloud.
Then, memories flickered across the glass. The mirror she looked into seemed to be a window into her life. She could see the life before her, but it didn't look the way it should. This wasn't the Miranda she had once been. This was some new creature that stared back at her through this two-way mirror. She was watching this thing live her life and it was blithely unaware of the true Miranda.
Absentmindedly, she kicked off a shoe, quickly bent down, picked it up and threw it at the stranger in the mirror. Instantly, the shattered pieces of mirrored glass hit the floor.
The sound of the glass sobered Miranda up enough for her to realize what she had just done.
"Oh just bloody fantastic." Miranda mumbled the slurred words under her breath.
"Silvia! Come to my room immediately and clean this mess! I can't possibly have glass in my carpet now can I? Call whoever it is that has windows a..." Stunned, Miranda caught the mistake she had made of calling the mirror a 'window' and she thought back to the moment before she destroyed the mirror. She stood, swaying in place, staring at her reflection in a large piece of glass on the floor.
Miranda heard her housekeeper trot towards the bedroom. Silvia stood awkwardly in the doorway, not sure what to do. She kept moving her eyes from the pile of glass shards to the equally shattered editor.
"Don't just stand there, clean this mess and order me a new mirror. Immediately. That's all." Miranda's annoyed tone jump-started Silvia and the maid hurried back down the stairs to retrieve the needed supplies.
Slowly, clumsily she stalked to her bathroom and put her back against the wall. Placing her hands over her face, she slid down the rough wall to sit on the cold tiles, her knees bending towards her chest, becoming a resting place for her elbows. She sat there on her bathroom floor, tears pooling in her palms.
Andy was sitting at her desk at The Mirror, her hand propping up her head that was quickly filling with thoughts of the platinum haired woman, when the sound of her phone vibrating startled her. She looked at the screen and noticed it was Emily.
"Why the hell is she calling me now?" Andy said aloud, half-expecting an answer from the phone itself.
"What is it, Em?" Andy answered in haste and agitation. "I'm in the middle of…"
"Andy, listen! Miranda is not at work and she won't answer her phone. You know I would go to her townhouse personally if I weren't here trying to keep things from falling apart…" While Emily went off on a self-righteous rant, Andy had already shut her laptop closed, grabbed her purse and headed out the door at the mere mention of Miranda's name.
"How long have you been trying to reach her?" Andy asked with urgency.
"…and it seems Nigel and Serena aren't going to be of much help. Oh, what did you say?" Emily, still gushing upon herself, realized Andy had spoken to her.
"How long…have you…been trying…to reach…Miranda?" Andy broke up the sentence and enunciated the words with fervor. She pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes and let out an agitated, rushed sigh.
"Oh my, for like half an hour now I suppose." Emily had glanced at her watch and was a bit shocked at the time.
"Half an hour? Miranda Priestly is half an hour late and you're just now calling someone to check on her? Are you barking mad? Especially after what she's been through, five minutes late is call for caution!" Andy had stopped in the middle of the road, yelling at Emily through the phone. The world had begun to spin and her heart was racing.
"What she's been through? Are you saying you know something I don't?" Emily was quite curious and a bit jealous at the fact Andy knew more about her former boss that Emily did.
Andy shook her head and hailed a taxi. She didn't even wait for it to come to a complete stop before she lunged for it, opened the door and tossed herself inside.
Andy was halfway to the townhouse and Emily was still jabbering on about how much needed to be done for the magazine. "Geez, Em, for someone who 'adores' Miranda so much, it seems you couldn't care less about her right now." Andy had to bite her tongue not to say this aloud to the girl.
The taxi pulled up to Miranda's townhouse. Andy literally threw money into the front passenger seat and quickly exited the vehicle. "Em, I'm here. I'll have to let you go. I'll talk to you later, maybe." Andy anxiously blurted out.
"Alright." Emily took on a serious and worried tone. "Call me back, will you? Le-let me know how she is, ok?"
Finally the schizo First Assistant sounds like she cares. "I will try." Andy really would try, though she didn't know if she'd have the opportunity to do so.
Andy had last been in the townhouse around four hours ago. Last night, she didn't do any snooping of any sort, but walking back in this morning in search of Miranda, doing some sleuthing might help.
She dug into her purse, fishing around for the key. She finally retrieved the key to the editor's home she still had stowed away in the inside pocket of her purse. Since this was the only tie she had to Miranda for a year, it always stayed with her, even now.
Taking the front steps two at a time, she thrust the key into the door and walked into the townhouse slowly. Dread surged through her body as she remembered finding Miranda's frail body the last time she had entered the townhouse calling out the older woman's name and she hoped upon hope she would not stumble upon that scene now or ever again.
Upon looking around the first floor for the missing editor, she glanced down the hall and noticed the bar cabinet was open. With a deep breath, she moved into a room on the left and then checked the kitchen.
"Miranda?" Andy gently calls.
With no response, she stepped further into the kitchen, looked down and found an empty liquor bottle neck poking out of the trash.
"Shit." Andy sighed with sadness clenching her chest.
Pushing the bottle back into the trash, she wiped her hand on her blouse and turned around to walk out of the room. Entering the hallway, she curved to the left and quickened her pace down the hall to the study where the editor usually spends most of her time.
"Miranda?" Andy called gently, but with more urgency than before.
As she walked into the dimly lit room, she heard something crinkle under her feet. When Andy hesitantly looked down, slight horror filled her chest. The Book's pages were strewn all across the floor. "Assistant instincts" kicked in and she quickly crouched down to pick up the scattered papers. She rose from picking up the mess and the waste basket caught her eye. Small bottles lined the bottom with tissues attempting to cover them.
"My god, Miranda." Andy suddenly became verklempt; her voice cracking upon saying the other woman's name.
She dropped the papers on the desk and hurried out of the study, making the upper floor her next destination. She took large strides towards the stairs and then took two steps at a time.
Upon reaching the second floor, Andy yelled out for the older woman.
"Miranda, where are you?" Urgency and apprehension clearly audible in her voice. She stood on the landing, trying to figure out which door to open first. She ran her fingers through her bangs and stopped her hand at the top of her head, digging her nails into her scalp.
"Which one are you in, dammit?" Andy thought.
Suddenly a door opened. Andy jerked her head around, almost giving herself whiplash and yanking out her hair.
"Oh, hello Miss. You must be a friend of Miss Miranda. I believe she's still in her bedroom. That door over there beside the window. Knock first, Miss. She doesn't like to be disturbed while in her bedroom." Silvia politely stated, pointing towards the door farthest to the left.
"Thank you." Andy quickly blurted, rushing for the door.
Her legs felt more like lead with every step she took towards that door. Her heart beat faster, dangerously close to beating out of her chest, and her palms began to sweat to the point she wiped them on her blouse continuously. Finally reaching her destination, she latched onto the doorknob, turned it with a quick flip of her wrist and pushed the door open. "Forget about knocking first, Miranda could be in trouble."
Andy opened the door to find another dark room. Fumbling her hand across the wall to her right, she found the light switch and flipped it on. Her brow furrowed as she took in the sight of the disheveled bed, large empty liquor bottle, and the pieces of the broken mirror still in place above the dresser.
Her heart sank down to her toes and her stomach threatened to move upwards. She stood still for a moment, taking in all the chaos. Then she heard faint whimpering sounds coming from behind the closed door on the opposite end of the room. Andy lept towards it and swung the door wide open.
The sight she saw took her back once more to when she had found Miranda in a similar position that night of the assault. Despite feeling weak in the knees, Andy ran over to a shaking Miranda and dropped to the floor beside her.
Miranda was shaking violently and lying on the bathroom floor, caught up in an anxiety attack.
Andy grabbed Miranda by the shoulders and pulled her up into a sitting position. "Miranda. Mir-Miranda….Focus on me. Look in my eyes, Miranda…." The shaking woman raised her head and looked into Andy's eyes. Andy could see the fear in those liquid blue irises.
"An-Andrea, I-I didn't know where you ha-had gone. You-you left wi-without telling me wh-where you went." Miranda was hyperventilating and shook her head, making her already disheveled hair scatter more.
Andy's brow furrowed and her heart sank into her stomach. Though she wanted to ask the woman why she didn't just call her cell, she couldn't find the words to do so. She looked at the trembling woman and said "Come here, ok?" Andy's voice was small and humble. Miranda met eyes with Andy once again and a small smile played on the corners of her lips.
Andy wrapped her arms around Miranda and tried to comfort her as best she could. Her chest felt too compressed to even breathe, let alone speak above a whisper. "It'll all be ok, Miranda, I'm here now. I won't ever leave you again." Miranda reciprocated the gentle embrace and hid her face in Andy's shoulder, finding calmness in the warmth.