"Sit down, I'll get it." (D/7/C)

AU: "Love Actually" (2003 film)

/

Amal and Annika Kotay, newlyweds of six weeks, were curled up on the sofa together on Christmas night, watching a live broadcast of Handel's Messiah on TV, when they were suddenly interrupted by the ringing of the door bell.

"Sit down, I'll get it," Annika said cheerfully, since Amal had a full bowl of salted cashews in his lap. As she went downstairs, however, something of her comfortable mood began to crumble around the edges. Who would show up at their door unannounced on Christmas at this time of night?

She flung the door open, ready to tell whoever it was to go away.

Joe Zimmerman stood there, a boombox in one hand and a stack of poster boards in the other, with bright red cheeks and nervous determination in his eyes. He switched on the boombox. A soft piano melody began to play.

"Who is it?" Amal called from upstairs.

"It's Joe," Annika called back.

Amal's high-strung, eccentric musician friend had a habit of surprising people with grand gestures, including a flash mob performance of "All You Need Is Love" at their wedding. She supposed this was something similar, although it surprised her even more tonight than it usually would have. Her last conversation with Joe had been anything but cordial.

Joe flushed even darker, fumbling with his poster boards as if he'd somehow forgotten how finger joints worked, as Amal's footsteps made the stairs creak. Annika moved aside to make room for her husband's well-muscled body in the door. He put his arm around her waist and glanced from her to Joe.

"Hey," he said. "What's this, a new song? Can't it wait 'til after New Year's?"

Instead of answering, Joe only held up the posters, moving each one back after a few seconds. The winter cold crept into the house around them as they read. The neighbours' multicolored light strings flashed from across the street. The CD kept playing, the music passionate, melancholy and hopeful by turns.

FIRST OF ALL

I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY

THE VIDEO WAS

INAPPROPRIATE

(& MAYBE SO IS THIS)

"Yeah, about that," Amal said grimly. "Annika told me, you know. I've been meaning to have a word."

Annika knew without asking to which video Joe was referring. In an awkward attempt to break the ice with her husband's friend, who had been prickly and standoffish to her from the moment they'd met, she had shown up at his apartment once with a box of cheesecake and asked him about the film she'd seen him shooting at the wedding. He'd done his best to discourage her, but she had stubbornly insisted on watching the video then and there.

It was not an ordinary amateur home movie, to say the least. The camcorder had lingered on her face like the eyes of a lover, the light and the angles lending her an incandescent beauty she'd never seen in the mirror. It had followed her as she laughed with delight during the flash mob, cut the cake with her typical precision, gave the speech she'd written so carefully in advance, danced until her hairstyle came unraveled, and waved a tipsy, affectionate goodbye to all their guests on the way to the honeymoon car. She'd never been good at holding her liquor, but even that embarrassing trait looked charming in the video.

Annika knew how it felt to have your eyes and camera drawn to someone like that. She was the same way with Amal.

"But … you don't even like me," she'd said to Joe in complete bewilderment as the tape began to rewind.

"It's a matter of self-preservation," Joe had replied miserably. "Don't show it around too much."

She hardly needed to see what was written on his next poster. In the back of her mind, she already knew.

I LOVE YOU ANNIKA

"What the - " Amal started forward, his hands balled into fists, but Annika stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Just hear him out first," she murmured. "Please."

Joe shifted his posters with an imploring look at both of them.

BUT AMAL IS MY FRIEND

I SWEAR ON MY LIFE

I'D NEVER COME BETWEEN YOU

EVEN IF YOU ASKED

(I KNOW YOU WOULDN'T)

He'd written them in advance, she realized. He hadn't known Amal would be standing right there when he presented them, so it wasn't only fear of retribution. He really meant it.

NEXT YEAR WILL FIND ME

IN ONE OF THESE PLACES …

The next poster was a collage of photos of all sorts of exotic landmarks: the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre, La Scala in Milan, the Taj Mahal, a beach lined with palm trees. Annika surprised herself with a smile, it was so unexpected. Joe seemed to be preparing for an Eat Pray Love experience. As successful as his latest album had been, she hoped he could afford it.

WITH ANY LUCK,

WHEN I COME BACK

I'LL HAVE LEARNED TO BE

AS HAPPY FOR YOU BOTH

AS YOU DESERVE

GOODBYE

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Joe put away his last poster, gave them an awkward thumbs-up and the saddest smile in history, picked up the boombox by the handle, and began to walk away.

"Wait." Amal, the most level-headed of the three, was the first to break the silence. "Seriously, Joe? You don't say a word for years, and then you spring this on us with … with posters?"

"It's not … I wasn't … I was afraid I might not stay coherent," said Joe, irritated and remorseful all at once. "I'm sorry, Amal. You weren't supposed to find out, but after that video … "

"That was my fault," Annika spoke up. "I shouldn't have kept digging around your shelves like that when you obviously wanted me to stop. You've always been such a mystery … I guess now we know why."

"Yes, well." Joe roughly yanked up the zipper on his jacket, which looked too warm for indoors, but not nearly warm enough for outdoors in December. His breath turned to steam as he exhaled. "I'd better be going. I have a plane to catch."

He turned away again, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

"Joe." Amal caught him by the arm. Joe froze, looking up at the taller man with brief but genuine fear, but all Amal did was squeeze his hand and clap him on the shoulder.

"Don't forget to write," he said gruffly.

"I won't."

Annika stepped forward to give Joe a brief, platonic kiss on the cheek. Then, because she couldn't help it, she fixed the collar he had been so clumsy with earlier. I forgive you, she meant to say. Take care of yourself. Be happy.

Then he was gone, piano notes from the boombox trailing him faithfully down the street, She thought she heard him murmur to himself, "Enough now," but she was never quite certain.

Amal closed the door against the cold, leaving them alone together in the warm entryway. Their little house was filled with music too, the Messiah still playing softly from the TV upstairs. It still smelled like candle smoke, hot spiced punch and vegetarian tamales they'd had for dinner. Annika had a sudden sense of how fragile their happiness was, how easily it could slip through her fingers, and how deeply she hoped it wouldn't.

"Annika … "

"Yes?"

"Be honest with me." Amal's dark eyes had a searching quality that, she was sure, would have spotted any attempt to lie. "If he'd said something earlier, back when the three of us first met … would you still have married me?"

Annika thought of that video, how it had reflected her best self back to her in ways she could never forget … but that was only a fantasy, and reality was right in front of her.

"I don't see how that's relevant," she said. "I did marry you."

Amal's eyes flickered with uncertainty, and she cursed her own awkwardness once again. Where was a stack of posters when you needed it?

"I chose you," she said, taking hold of the lapels of his corduroy blazer. "Not him, not anyone else. I chose you for the rest of my life, and I'm happy I did. Are you?"

"You know I am," he said, pulling her close to be deeply and thoroughly kissed.

Who needed a grand gesture, she thought, when the small ones were so satisfying? Who needed to bottle up their feelings until they erupted, when they could simply tell each other face to face?

"You know what, though?" she asked as they made their way toward the bedroom.

"What?"

"Next time the doorbell rings at this hour," she said, smirking, "Let's not answer."

"Agreed."