Author's Note: OK, I lied. This chapter seemed to slip out faster than I thought it would. Diavoloduchessa, I have to admit that I am very impatient, and will mercilessly kill people off to get to where I want to go. Don is going to cry a lot in this fic! Scarlett88 - I think I've been spoiled with all your support! Thank you for always reviewing and writing awesome fics :)
Don laid in bed on Friday, staring up at the ceiling, an intense sense of shame washing over him. He was supposed to have prepared for Bobby and Gene. They were coming on Sunday. He was supposed to have bought cookware and bakeware and glasses and a coffee machine, and maybe some board games for the kids. Instead, he had been drinking since Peggy had left his apartment last Sunday. Between sips of rye, he had dug up his little black book and called every prostitute he had ever been with, and the last five days had been nothing but a stream of empty encounters which made him feel more disgusting with every passing one. Nothing was done, and the apartment smelt like alcohol, cigarettes and desperation. Peggy was going to arrive soon with the last of her things, and he didn't even have the energy to get out of bed, never mind clean up the place for her arrival. He supposed he had a hang over, but it was a distant second feeling to the emptiness and shame that engulfed him. The last couple of days he hadn't even managed to shave his face in anticipation of his dates' arrivals, and as he ran his hand over his chin, he couldn't even bring himself to care. The liquor was going to run out, and Amber, the one he had seen daily, refused to bring anymore over after their encounter on Thursday, and he couldn't even care about that. He simply stared and drank, and he wondered blankly if he was going to be able to open the door when Peggy arrived.
Peggy had managed to borrow Jerry's car under the pretence that she and Stan were going on a romantic weekend getaway to Boston. It seemed overkill to hire movers when she had so little, and Anita was happy to have the excuse to spend some family time together with her husband. Stan had helped her move her things into the car, and given her a passionate kiss laden with promise for the next time she saw him. Despite her protestations, she was a little intrigued by the idea of playing the part of wife and mother. She thought of it as a trial run to see if she was up to the task of having the four kids Stan talked about, although she was sure it would be easier being married to Stan than it would be Don.
She parked on the street, and took a box with her as she went up to Don's apartment. When she got into the lobby, she nodded to the doorman.
"I'm here to see Don Draper." The doorman was polite, but his eyebrows went up with a knowing, bored look which made Peggy feel uncomfortable. She got into the elevator, and when she arrived knocked on Don's door. There was no response. She frowned, and tried again. Still nothing.
"Don?" She called. She waited, but still didn't hear any movement from inside. She put down her load, and tried the door handle. The door opened for her, and she stepped in carefully. Her face crinkled as she smelt the strong odor of hard liquor and sweat. She noticed the apartment looked almost exactly the same as she had left it, except there were bottles strew across the furniture and floor, and the carpet didn't look as pristine as it had five days ago.
"Don?" She called out again.
"M'here." She heard his voice mumble, and she felt relief from the tension that she didn't know was building. She crossed the apartment and headed into his – no, their – bedroom.
"Don." She repeated again, biting her lip and frowning as she gazed on her former boss. "You look like shit. This place smells like shit." His glassy eyes stared at her sorrowfully.
"I know." His face was filled with shame and defeat, and Peggy's ire rose as she gave him a pitying glance.
"What have you been doing all week?" She demanded. He smirked sadly.
"Hookers."
"Don," Peggy sighed, and she went and sat on the edge of the bed, placing her hand on his outstretched forearm. He looked at her, and she felt her anger wash away as he gave the most pathetic look she had ever seen in her life. "Are you still drunk?"
"I'm coming out of it. I think." He mumbled. She looked around the bedroom, and thought.
"Look," she said softly. "We still have a lot of work to do before Sunday. You need to get up, have a shower, shave and get ready to go out. We're going to hit a diner. I doubt you've eaten since I last saw you." He looked her up and down simply, and shook his head.
"I don't think I can."
"It doesn't matter if you can, Don. You are going to do it." She replied firmly. "I will push you out of his bed and carry you to the shower if I have to."
"I'm naked under the covers." He cracked a small smile, and looked up at her, eyes shining for approval, like he had made a hilarious joke.
"I don't care." She said simply. When he didn't move, she grabbed the edge of the sheet and unceremoniously threw it off of him. His head jerked up, and he gave a look of shock to the young copywriter. She stared him down, and he slowly realized that she had won this battle.
"I guess I'm getting up."
Don got into the shower, and felt a jolt as the first cold jet of water hit him. It hurt, but it felt good in a way that he hadn't felt in a while. He leaned against the wall for a second, letting the steady stream purify him and wash the last few days from his skin. As the water warmed up, he put his face into the spray, and unsteadily ran his fingers through his hair and scrubbed his scalp. For a moment, he felt back on track, almost like he was human again.
While Don was in the shower, Peggy returned to her car and gathered the rest of her work clothes. She had ignored the doorman as she remarked "That was a short visit" to her, and gave him an angry glance as she came back in with her outfits in tow. She found it strange that a man like Don, who shared so little of his life with anyone, would want to have a doorman constantly monitoring his movements.
She threw her clothes on the couch, and went to the balcony to open the window. Critically she swept her eyes over the apartment and cracked open all the windows she could find, including the ones in the kids' bedrooms. She then went to their bedroom, and stripped the bed of the sheets and bunched them into a ball. She was about to call out to Don, when she heard him yell "Shit!"
"Don?" She hurried into his en suite washroom, and found him with a towel around his waist, frantically splashing cold water on his scruffy face. "What happened?"
"I cut myself shaving." He muttered angrily, grabbing a hand towel and wiping the water off. She watched his unsteady hand reach for his straight razor again, and she shook her head and stepped in.
"Your hand is trembling. Here." She grabbed the blade from his hand and turned him to face her as she eyed his beard. Peggy grabbed the brush for the shaving cream and dipped it in the pot, and carefully applied it to his face. "You DO have some greys coming in here."
"I might have to start dying it."
"Shhh. Stop moving." She commanded, and carefully began to scrap the growth from his chin. Don held very still as she made the first clumsy strokes, stepping on her tip toes to reach his height.
"Have you done this before?" He asked as she ran the blade under the water.
"Lets just say I've never cut anyone shaving before." Her eyes narrowed as she paid close attention to the grooves of his face, and her next strokes were more confidant. Don looked at her, eyes cautious with vulnerability. This, he reflected as he watched her work, was possibly the most intimate thing he had ever done with a woman. Ironically, he had been searching for that illusive feeling in all the wrong places, and now that it was in front of him, he was uneasy and unsure of himself. Who knew how intimate it was to have a woman with a blade at your throat?
Don and Peggy walked silently down the street to the diner as the sun fell low in the sky, and Don was unsure of what to say. He was afraid he had lost her respect, or whatever there was left of it, and he knew she was irked that he hadn't done what he said he would.
"Peggy," He began as they waited at the counter for their orders. "I'll go out tomorrow and get everything we're missing." She shook her head and looked at him, exasperatedly but with kindness.
"We don't have any more time left, Don. This needs to get done, and I'm not sure that if I leave you to your own devices that it will. I've got all of your bedding in the washing machine, and my pyjamas are here anyway. I'll spend the night and we'll get an early start tomorrow and get your place together." Don felt himself blush with the humiliation that he couldn't be trusted, but he knew that he was in no position to argue with her.
"Do you want to go out tonight?" She shook her head.
"I'm tired, and by the time we get anywhere, the stores will be closing. We'll leave it for tomorrow." She stated. They waited in silence until their orders came, and Don's stomach growled as the smell of hamburgers and bacon suddenly wakened his appetite. Peggy looked at his stomach, and then up at him, questioningly. "When was the last time you ate?" He shrugged.
"I think I've been having liquid meals for a few days." He admitted. The brunette looked at him with a motherly concern, and Don just kept feeling smaller and weaker the longer he spent with her.
Peggy's pyjamas had kittens strewn across them, and Don thought they were oddly adorable for a thirty-something year old woman. They sat on the couch and watched 'The Seven Year Itch' together, their burgers and fries long ago finished. Don sipped at his coke as he watched Marilyn Monroe flounce across the screen, seducing Tom Ewell with a childish charm. Peggy sighed with envy.
"A woman like that, throwing it all away." She said. Don raised his eyebrow at his companion.
"You think she had it all?"
"Sure. Fame, money, beauty, the admiration of every man in the country." Don shook his head as he took a sip of his coke.
"Not mine." Peggy looked over in surprise.
"You're telling me that if you saw her in a bar, you'd look the other way?"
"No. But as a starlet, she just never held much interest for me. She was too lost, had too many issues that were photographed at every turn. When I see actors on a screen, I want to lose myself in them. I want to know that they live an unimaginably perfect life, that they are better than me, deserving of my admiration. Every time I see her I just feel badly."
"Huh." Peggy wondered out loud. "So which actresses did you like?"
"Irene Dunne." He replied without hesitation. "She filled a lot of my thoughts as a teenage boy. She was always so... perfect. She was married to the same man until he died, Eisenhower made her a delegate to the United Nations. Intelligent, talented, stable, beautiful, faithful. Everything that a man would want in a woman." Peggy nodded, and the movie played on as they continued to sip at their pop.
"Don." She said suddenly. "When you called me from California, what did you mean when you said 'I'm not the man you think I am?'" Don shifted on the couch, looking over at her as an internal debate whispered quietly inside of him.
"Do you really want to know?" Peggy looked at him, blinking naively.
"Of course I do." Don gave her a soul piercing stare, and she suddenly wondered if she was ready for his answer. He was silent for what seemed like an eternity, but she could feel a crescendo building in him, and waited patiently for the right moment to come.
"Don Draper isn't my real name." He started. "I took the name of my commanding officer in Korea after he was killed in an accident. It meant I got to go home quicker. I delivered his body – the real Don Draper's- to my family to mourn. Or whatever they did with it." He took a breath. "I've cheated on both my wives. Sally caught me with the neighbour woman once, and I don't think she's forgiven me. I lied to her after, and told her I was 'comforting' the woman. I spent so many nights away from Betty and the children that I'm surprised any of them remember my name. Or at least, my stolen one. My mother was a prostitute, and my father was a drunkard. I grew up poor. Incredibly poor. I killed the American Aviation account with SCDP because they wanted a background check on me, and jeopardized the future of the company and all of its employees so I could keep living my lie. I've slept with prostitutes, I fired Lane Pryce right before he hung himself, I kept a woman locked in a hotel room for days on end, I killed Ted's account with Ocean Spray after promising I wouldn't." Don's mouth felt like a dry waterfall, and the words wouldn't stop, and he couldn't bring himself to care. He just wanted to spew his misdeeds until they ran empty, and all of his shame and guilt was displayed. "I called Betty a whore for cheating on me with Henry, after I had done it to her thousands of times before. I tried to make her feel insane, like she was imagining my infidelity, even though she knew I was out there, making love to other women. One time I got Roger drunk and made him walk up 17 flights of stairs so that he would be sick in front of our clients. I slept with Allison and then gave her a cash Christmas bonus the day after, like she was a whore. I unilaterally killed our account with Jaguar because I couldn't stand the man we were dealing with. I stalked Megan on her soap opera set when I knew she would have a love scene with another character. For one of Sally's birthdays, I left partway through to get a cake, and didn't come back home until midnight. I used to be a car salesman, and I sold a lot of shitty cars for way more than they were worth. I received bonuses from Sterling Cooper, and spent them on mistresses rather than my own family. I fucked up your account with St. Joseph's because I was jealous that you liked Ted more than me. I let Ted go to California because I decided I was bored with Megan and because I was tired of seeing you two together. I fucked up the Hersey's pitch because... I don't even know why I did that." Don's face flushed with emotions he couldn't name, but his soul felt empty, like he had torn his heart out of his chest cavity and was bleeding out. Part of him wished he were, that he had the ultimate catharsis of confession followed by death and the lack of opportunity to ever need confession again. The perfect ending for a man like him.
Peggy's face was blank, as it had been through his entire rant. At some point he had stopped looking at her, and his face was turned to the glow of the TV, eyes unfocused and unseeing. He wished she would stand up and berate him about what a terrible person he was, and how she was ashamed she had ever shared an office building with him. He wanted to be punished for his transgressions, to be validated in his own self-hatred.
Instead, her gaze became tender, and she stroked a fallen piece of hair behind his ear, which quickly flopped back into its untamed place. The back of her hand stroked the side of his face for a brief second, before falling softly to rest on his shoulder. Don flinched, but her gaze was steady and forgiving. "You're OK Don." She said slowly, with a reassuring timber. "You're OK."
Granted his absolution, Don felt himself in limbo, a scary inbetween place where he could rise to heaven or fall back down to hell, and he was unsure of whether he even wanted this chance. He saw a road behind him, paved with sin and misdeed, and a mountain ahead that he didn't think he could climb. He was trapped, and he didn't know what to do. So he raised his hand to his mouth, closed his eyes, and started to sob.
