A/N: The next chapters aren't written but I'll write them post-haste. Poppinswannabe and gave me some good ideas so maybe we can play with those a little. But not too much. We've got to get on with writing other stuff too! And we all know I'm not great at multi-tasking lol
Thank you for all the love! You're all utterly darling. Also. It is time, my loves.
It. Is. Time.
-0-
Despite her best efforts, the week or so following Irv's departure was rough. That was the only word Andy could think of to describe it. Nigel's words seemed to have created an echo chamber in her head that rolled itself around and around until it made her dizzy.
She more than cares.
It wasn't until she'd set two coffees down on Miranda's desk for another impromptu meeting with Ann Shankley that Andy realised she'd pulled away from their friendship. The words were exhausting, though, and they echoed and echoed, over and over. She was almost in tears when Miranda's quiet, assertive, voice filled her senses and she paused after putting Ann's coffee beside her quietly.
She'd placed Ann's down first, but such was her discombobulation, that when she placed Miranda's down, on the customary left-hand side, for some reason she'd gone around the desk instead of staying across from it, standing beside Ann. To that end, she'd had to reach a little, over the back of Miranda's chair and in doing so, leant just a little on Miranda's shoulder. As she put the coffee down, Miranda had reached up and squeezed her hand gently and instead of simply leaving, Andy had squeezed her shoulder in response and for some explicable reason, her thumb had run along the tendons on Miranda's bare neck. A bolt of electricity seemed to shoot up into her thumb. It made her stop what she was doing and stare at her hand, and at the pale neck beneath it. Flashes of understanding that had been shrouded suddenly revealed themselves in startling clarity and Andy could do nothing about the onslaught of moments that crowded her every inch.
Everything suddenly made so much sense.
The scene she had witnessed through Sarah's open door. Ann's gentle hand on Sarah's shoulder. The soft kiss to her hair. The confusion and almost anger that had followed that hadn't made sense but had been so visceral. She could hear Miranda's voice asking if she was alright but she simply nodded and left the room without saying anything. She stared at her desk for the longest time before dropping her phone on the pile of papers waiting to be filed and disappeared into the restroom down the hall. She rushed in and locked the door behind her and, without really even knowing why, she sobbed. She sank down onto the floor, clutching her knees to her chest and she sobbed into them. Someone knocked on the door, but she didn't answer them. She had no idea how long she'd been there, but she guessed it might have been an hour or, just as easily, 2 minutes. She was exhausted and reeling and she didn't know whether she could cope with seeing Miranda at that moment. So she did the only thing she could.
She ran.
She didn't even go back for her phone, she simply ran from the building. She knew Roy wasn't doing anything at the moment, but she didn't want to bother him, so she hailed a cab and sank into the overly-incensed seats with a sigh. Her hands hadn't stopped shaking since she'd dropped her phone and she clenched them together on her knee to stop it being so obvious.
As the cabbie pulled up, she realised she'd left everything at the office and she gaped in horror.
"Um, I haven't -" she blinked, looking up at the doorman. "Oh," she said as he opened the door. "Mike."
"Miss Andy? Everything okay?"
"Have you got twenty bucks I could borrow? I left my wallet at work."
For the amount of terror that was coursing through her veins, her voice was unbelievably even.
"Sure," he smiled. "Just get me back later."
"Thanks, Mike," she muttered, already planning on doing so as soon as possible.
Perhaps, as soon as she could think without wanting to throw up. She grabbed the spare key from the desk man and raced up to her home.
The home that Miranda was paying for.
That Miranda -
She made it to the bathroom with seconds to spare as her stomach rebelled and she collapsed in a heap in front of the toilet.
She didn't know what to do.
She just had no idea what to do.
-0-
Hours later, after the sun had dropped just below the horizon and the reflections from her glass sculpture had stopped dancing on the walls, someone knocked on the door. Andy sighed into her wine glass and ignored it. There were two possibilities; a courier, delivering her things, or the alternative. The pause after the knock told her it was the latter and, if possible, made her even less interested in opening the door.
"Andréa?"
Andy rolled her eyes at her naivete.
Miranda used her key and stepped inside. Judging by the quiet noises Andy could just about hear, she took off her coat and hung it in the closet. She heard Miranda chuckle at the outlandish things the girls had brought for her recently to put up on the shelves she'd had installed by the front door. A garish lime green hippopotamus that held her keys in its mouth and a Smokey Bear that was holding a welcome sign bought specially for her after Caroline found out that Andy donated to the National Parks every month.
Her heart thumped as she heard the bare feet coming closer and she forced herself not to look as she heard a wine glass being removed from the frame hanging above the sink. A soft pour and a sigh as she took a sip.
Not a quick visit, then.
"Now," Miranda said quietly, settling, rather surprisingly, on the coffee table in front of her. "Speak to me."
"Why," she said a little too quickly. "I mean, I don't -" Again, not her finest work. Miranda's eyebrow showed her displeasure. "I don't know what you're talking about," Andy muttered, drinking the rest of her wine to avoid looking at her any longer.
"Really."
"Really," Andy said with a tone that she wasn't proud of.
"That's interesting." Miranda took a sip of her wine, humming at the choice. "I thought that perhaps I had done something and fallen from grace? I have spent the last eight days wracking my brain for a reason. For something I had done. I even considered asking Nigel," she hummed. "I was desperate to know what I have done to make you feel that I really am the bitch everyone else thinks I am."
"That's not -"
"No?" Miranda said, a little bit of hurt in her tone. "Then what is it? You draw me in, make yourself indispensable, befriend me?" She stood and started pacing between the coffee table and Andy's bent knees. "And then?" Miranda laughed but it wasn't a happy sound. "And then, you leave me. Again. Like you did before. Worse though, you didn't even have the courage to just go, until today," Miranda stepped away. "You stayed, but you weren't there. You refused to look at me, refused to speak to me, beyond perfunctory words? You twist the knife every single time you dodge my calls or my texts or my looks? We haven't spoken outside the office for eight days, Andréa, did you know that?" Andy's heart squashed as she tried not to listen. It was impossible though. Miranda was her world and she heard everything loud and clear. She would have, even if Miranda had been whispering. "I should have known," Miranda muttered. "I should have known that nobody would want this. That I couldn't afford to give my shield away to anyone, that I -"
Andy's eyes closed as the truth rolled around her head over and over.
"Don't," she choked, getting up and moving away to stand in front of the window, wrapping her arms around her middle but Miranda wasn't finished.
"I thought it was different this time. I thought -"
"I've fallen in love with you."
The wineglass in Miranda's hand fell to the floor and tears started rolling down Andy's face despite her eyes being shut tightly. She knew what was coming. The same sort of rejection she'd imagined a hundred times since her realisation, only with a slightly more pathetic excuse. She didn't want to hear it.
She couldn't.
"I -"
"I don't want to hear it," she muttered, putting her own glass down. "No harm, no foul. I'll turn in my resignation and I'll -"
"The wine glass was dramatic, I grant you, but I promise you, nothing you are about to say is making sense."
"I fucked up," Andy almost yelled, spinning around to glare at Miranda. To her credit, the woman didn't flinch, instead, her eyes blazed with something Andy could not name. "I didn't mean to. I didn't set out to fall in love. Not with you, not with anyone. I didn't even know I was. And what's worse, now that I know? I am in so deep and there's no chance, no way to take this back. I can't hide it any longer, not now I know, but I also can't live with it either. It's better if I go."
"I was wrong," Miranda huffed. "You are more dramatic than my wine glass."
"Miranda -"
"You think you can read me so well," Miranda said softly with more than a little teasing. The change in tone was startling. It seemed to quiet the babble inside Andy's head. "That you see all of me when you look?" Andy swallowed and turned back to face the dark city. Her eyes fell on the glasswork and her heart thumped heavily. She was so stupid. She had ruined everything by letting her heart rule her head and there was no way back now. She wasn't enough. She would never be enough for a woman like Miranda. No matter what Nigel said. Miranda had befriended her, is all. Nothing more. "You don't think I have anything else I can hide from you?" That same soft voice made Andy's thoughts still and she looked up at the window, seeing Miranda's reflection, staring right at her. "You don't think that I could possibly entertain the idea that a thirty-something woman might fall in love with me?" Andy's heart thumped loudly. "Or, more importantly," their eyes met in that reflection. "That I could fall in love with her?" Andy's heart stopped. "And that she just might be the right person to make me happy for the rest of my life?"
That made Andy spin back around. She stared as Miranda considered her. Andy realised that the woman was surrounded by broken glass, lying where it fell but it didn't seem to phase Miranda at all. She kept speaking.
"You don't think that I could possibly entertain the idea that all the things you do for me, beyond that which you are paid to do, is love? That it is all just a job? Andréa," she said it so gently, Andy couldn't help the little sob she made. "I have known -" She made a face. "I had hoped, Andréa, for so long that you might have felt something. And I have known for so long that one day, if I was correct, that you would realise. I sought to teach you all that I knew so that when you did realise, and you ran, that you would go on to be greater than anyone I've ever known. That people in this city would whisper your name and not mine."
"What?" Andy gaped, her voice cracking under the strain. "Why? Why would you do that?"
"Because you matter, Andréa. And, I know you, I know your soul by now, my darling. I knew you would run when you realised. You have such a low opinion of yourself and I am not unaware of my reputation even though, as you so rightly say, you have seen behind the curtain. I can be caustic. I am quick to anger and I forget birthdays and anniversaries and I am not romantic in the slightest. But the thing is, at the time, in the beginning, when I first realised? I was fine with you running. I was prepared for it, even. I was ready." She sighed deeply. "My life is complicated enough. I don't need a significant other, especially not a woman, especially not a woman your age. And yet," she chuckled but it wasn't what Andy would label as happy. "What I failed to realise," their eyes met. "You beautiful, intelligent, sensual creature, is that in trying to make sure that I had set you up to be the best you could be, and seeing your capacity for love and seeing your intelligence and seeing how you parented my daughters better than the useless waste of space that is my ex-husband," she took a deep breath and Andy saw that same fire in her eyes she'd glimpsed on and off in recent times. "Well, I quite fell in love with you too."
Andy's eyes nearly fell out of her head as the most vulnerable Miranda she'd ever seen, looking up at her in earnest.
"You -"
"I'm in love with you, Andréa. I'm not certain I know exactly when it started. I don't even know when I knew it, only that it seems as though it has always been there. Always. Warming my cold heart."
"Don't," Andy shook her head. "Don't you dare joke about this, I -"
"Andréa?"
Andy's heart skipped and beat and she pressed hard on her chest.
"Miranda, I can't. Don't play with me."
"Oh my darling girl," Miranda whispered, crossing the room in what seemed like a single bound. In reality, Andy stepped forward to help her step up and then off the sofa where she'd clambered out of the glass. Once they were standing before each other, well away from where they'd started, Miranda continued. "How careless I was to make you imagine that I would toy with you in this way. Do you not see, Andréa?"
She blinked. Then shook her head. She wasn't sure she could see anything at all.
"My whole world is you. Every moment of my entire existence is you. You moved in with us, when you lost your apartment and such peace descended on us that I was terrified that I might never find it again when you left. I thought, perhaps, that it was at that moment, all the way back then before I moved you over here. But I no longer think that is true. I wanted to capture you then, keep you, selfishly, for the good you had brought into my life. And then this place, moving you here so that you would never be too far away. But it turned out to be just close enough to torture me. To know you are here every night, alone, in the quiet and that I was over there, alone, in the quiet. The peace remained, but my need for it changed. I no longer wanted to possess it," she whispered. "I wanted to share it with you. I wanted to sip from it like the finest wine. Later, when I knew, I figured that you would be far enough away that I would have a degree of separation to protect me when it was time to move you along. Why do you think I pushed you so much in the beginning? I was prepared to lose you in order to nurture your future. It is imperative to my soul that you achieve everything you wish to, and more." Her forehead rested against Andy's and Andy stared into the endless blue oceans that were Miranda's eyes. "But I am weak, my dearest love. My children," she sighed. "My children could not live without you. They were a convenient excuse to hide the truth."
"What truth?" Andy whispered, her hand coming up to touch Miranda's cheek gently. "What truth, Miranda?"
"That I could not bear to live without you either."
Andy captured Miranda's lips without thought, her arms wrapping around the small, solid body tightly. Miranda's lips were so soft and she tasted of wine and coffee and something else she didn't have a name for. She felt tears spilling onto her cheeks but she could not tell if they were her's or Miranda's but she held on for dear life, desperation pushing her on until she had to pull away, breathing hard.
"I love you Andréa," Miranda breathed. "Ever so much more than I thought possible."
"I love you," Andy choked, her hands mapping Miranda's face, running through her hair, tracing down her neck. "I love you so much. I don't," she shook her head and stepped away, wiping away her tears. "I don't want to leave you."
"Leave me?"
"I can't be," she shuddered. "I can't be your assistant if I'm -"
"Who says?"
"It's not -"
"Darling, I thought we'd moved past that? With Ann and Sarah?" She chuckled. "I honestly thought that was the moment you had realised?"
"No," Andy blushed. "I didn't realise then. Today," she almost choked. "Though," she snorted. "That clued me in. I touched your shoulder," she ran her thumb along the tendon that had led her heart to the truth. "You squeezed my hand." Miranda did so. "And I rubbed your neck. I realised that it was the same. That I'm always touching you. When you are," she brushed Miranda's beautiful white hair back. "To so many, untouchable."
"Darling," Miranda smiled gently. "All roads lead here, I'm not concerned with when, or why. Only with the now. And do not worry about work. Many, many assistants have been wives and lovers. I just join a long and distinguished line of people, mostly men, who fell for the woman that kept their every waking moment accounted for," she snorted. "I think," she smirked. "If we're honest with ourselves, we've perhaps been doing this for a long time, no? Maybe I'm not so different after all."
"The press -"
"Hang the press. I don't care one bit."
"The girls -"
Miranda made a noise and smiled at her. That little smile she only ever gave to Andy.
"You think they would be upset," Miranda said gently. "About this?"
"I don't know." Andy swallowed. "I'm not sure I know anything anymore."
"They love you, Andréa. They have loved you from the start. You support and nourish and nurture their little souls and I am so very happy to know that I have finally found someone worthy of their love."
"Miranda, this is insane. You're -" Miranda's eyebrow arched. "And I'm -"
"Oh, my darling," Miranda despaired quietly. "I do wish you'd have more self-esteem," she said gently. "And would listen to me when I tell you that without you, I am nothing," she shrugged. "Nothing, Andréa. We've been through this, remember? Single mother with two children, a dog and endless piles of money. Nothing more. Nothing less."
"I don't -"
"With you, though, I am Queen. Because you make it so. I cannot live without you in my life. All of my life. I do not ever wish to. I want you. I have for some time."
"You -" Andy swallowed.
"Watching films with you became one of my favourite pastimes. It enabled me to sit so close to you and rest against you," she blushed. "Fall asleep on you." Andy laughed, a touch of hysteria raising the pitch. "It didn't start that way, but it ended up being only about that. I didn't care what we watched as long as we sat together. And existed, outside of," she waved her hand. "All of this. Seeing the world through your eyes has made me a better person, Andréa. Not just a better editor, a better human."
"Can I," Andy took a big breath. "Can I just clarify something?"
Miranda nodded.
"You love me?"
"With all of my heart," she smiled indulgently.
"And you," Andy's hands were shaking and she rubbed them on her yoga pants. "Have known that I was, I am, in love with you for -"
"A while, yes."
"I didn't know," Andy gaped. "And you never said anything?"
"I couldn't," Miranda muttered. "You had to be the one to come to that conclusion. To be the one with courage, my love. If it was going to be anybody, it had to be you. Do you see that?"
She thought about it and realised Miranda was right. If Miranda had broken first, she would have been seen as a position of power, exerting that power over her assistant. If Andy broke first, it was different.
"Miranda? How long have you known I might have loved you?"
"I have long thought about this, myself," she mused, tracing Andy's cheek. "I think I had a small idea that something was behind your eyes from the moment you took me for lunch by that waterfall?" Andy gaped. "You looked at me, just before we left and," she smiled. "I have seen and felt many people's eyes on me Andréa, but none so deep as yours. They shine when they look at me. When they meet my own, I feel as though I am anchored in even the most powerful storm."
"I had no idea. I mean -" She thought about it. "I didn't know that's what it was."
"I know. Is that what this last week has been about?"
"Nigel," she whispered. "At the bar after the Irv thing. He told me that you would give me everything," she sighed. "We were interrupted, and I didn't understand, but he pushed hard enough that I started thinking, and watching. You watch me."
"I do love watching you," Miranda whispered.
"I realised, as I was watching you, that I was always watching you. I needed you, craved you, but I've never really known why." She half-sobbed with a laugh. "I was so oblivious."
"You were," Miranda chuckled, cupping her cheek. "But that made it all the purer."
"So -" Andy's brain was spinning so fast she was only just remaining on her feet. "We're in love?"
"It seems so," Miranda beamed. "It is a fortuitous day. I do love Thursdays."
"Are you even -"
"I don't believe in labels, my darling. I am in love with you and I believe that is enough for me."
Andy snorted happily and took the two steps forward she'd just taken back. She scooped Miranda up in her arms again and pressed deep and endless kisses against Miranda's mouth.
"God, I didn't know that I have wanted to do that for so long," she muttered against those luscious lips.
"It has been tortuous, Andréa," Miranda whispered between kisses. "Having you so close, seeing you so often. Proceeding at such a glacial pace."
"You wish me to thrill you, Miranda?"
She wasn't sure where the bravery was coming from, except that Miranda seemed to like it. She threw her head back and laughed in that way that made Andy's heart thump pleasurably.
"God, I love making you laugh."
"You do so, quite a lot more than you realise."
"Will you," she swallowed as Miranda looked at her. "Stay? Properly. I, we don't have to -"
"Yes," Miranda cupped her cheek and pressed a sweet kiss to her lips. "I'd love to."
Andy pushed Miranda gently towards the kitchen counter, sighing happily as she picked Miranda up and dropped her on top of it.
"If you think this is happening in your kitchen, you have another thing coming."
"So many buttons," Andy mumbled, concentrating on unbuttoning Miranda's shirt. "So little time."
"Honestly," Miranda growled as Andy grumbled at the last few buttons that her shaking fingers could not undo.
"Fucking fuck."
Miranda laughed and stilled Andréa's fingers, pulling them to her mouth and kissing them gently.
"Slow down. We have all night. The rest of our lives, hopefully?"
Andy nodded almost comically, then blushed.
"I just said we don't have to do," she swallowed. "That, and then I -"
"Hush, love," Miranda said gently. "As I said. I'm not sure we haven't been together all this time and just haven't realised. All those dates? All those moments of quiet love?"
"Oh," Andy grinned bashfully. "Oh yeah."
"Mmm," Miranda laughed as Andy's eyes got impossibly wider. "Have you eaten?"
Andy nodded.
"So, I'll meet you on my side of the bed?"
Miranda hopped down off the counter and sauntered towards Andy's room.
"Wait, what?" she called, suddenly realising what she'd said. "You infuriating -"
For all of her life, after that moment, Andy would never forget the girly squeal that Miranda released as Andy pulled her into her arms and dropped her onto the bed. She followed shortly afterwards with a laugh that her soul was a part of.
"I love you Andréa."
"I love you," Andy smiled. "May I?"
"You very much may," Miranda whispered.