So i had the whole story done, then i changed one detail, and now it's going to be a little longer than the two chapters planned...
also, I watched Manic and Lowdown a lot when writing this and it shows.
The triumph of every motion going her way is quickly dampened when she gets back to her place. Alex opens the door and Casey's already in the kitchen. Even though they're not seeing eye to eye, Casey follows through on her word and cooks, which eases some of the tension in Alex's chest.
"How were motions?" Casey asks, not turning around.
"Got them all," Alex said. She leans over Casey's shoulder to see what she's doing, and satisfied she doesn't have anything sharp in her hands, rests her head on Casey's shoulder, one arm around her waist. Casey stops peeling carrots, but she doesn't turn around and kiss Alex hello like she usually does.
Alex lets go, the tension back twofold. "I'm going to change." She stalls in the bedroom, keenly aware that she could have reacted better at the courthouse, but that doesn't change the way she feels.
Casey's made some pork, rice and vegetable dish that smells good, but it's tasteless to Alex. They eat in silence, Casey going through emails while she eats. Alex finishes the crossword that she hadn't had time to finish earlier. It's not abnormal for them to do this, but the quiet is never as heavy as it is now.
It's only when Alex starts the dishwasher and turns to leave the kitchen when Casey says something, leaning against the doorframe. Her hands are in her pockets and while it may look casual, it's anything but. "We can't avoid it all evening."
Alex leans against the counter, the tightness in her chest spreading to her stomach. The distance between them is barely ten feet, but to Alex, it seems like a mile.
"Are you going to start, or shall I?" Casey asks, but she waits only a second. "Fine. I'm tired. I'm tired of us pretending like we're not in a relationship outside of our apartments. I'm tired of keeping this under wraps. I'm not saying we go out and put little rainbow flags on our laptops. We don't have to tell everyone. I don't care if you don't kiss me outside, hell, I don't care if you don't hold my hand in public. I just want to be Casey, Alex's girlfriend, not Casey, Alex's colleague.
"Alex, I agreed because I wanted to be happy, with you, and I am happy with you. But if this is as serious to you as it is to me, I need something more than 'we'll figure it out.'"
Every word out of Casey's mouth is rational and it stings. "It is," Alex says, guilty that the short response is all she can muster.
"Then why can't it be real outside?" Casey asks.
Alex looks away, crossing her arms. She knows whatever comes out of her mouth decides the fate of her relationship with Casey. "In here, we're great. More than great. I've never felt better than when I'm with you." Alex pauses, her throat tightening and her eyes stinging. She hasn't cried about a relationship since when she was twenty-six, and the man she fell in love with—
And there it is; Alex can't stop herself as she steamrolls on, feeling like she's watching herself in slow motion. "I love you."
Casey opens her mouth, shuts it, then tries again. "This isn't how I pictured you saying it for the first time," she says, her voice cracking.
"Yeah." She doesn't miss Casey's choice of words, and she figures that the other woman had been waiting for the right moment. She digs her fingernails into her palms, trying to keep herself present, but everything seems to be disintegrating quicker than she can hold onto it. "I'm not saying it to change the discussion. I know we need to have it. I'm saying it because I do. I do love you."
Casey gives her a long look, and Alex doesn't want to try to decipher it. Instead, she looks at the floor while she waits for Casey to say something. The silence stretches on for too long, and when Alex looks up, Casey's eyes are wet and she looks utterly lost. "I should go." She turns to leave, walking towards the door.
"Casey. Casey!" Alex calls after the other woman, and when she reaches the foyer, Casey's shoes and coat are on, she's taken a tissue from the box at the front, and she looks so tired that all Alex wants to do is help her out of her coat and draw a bath for them. They'd cuddle together in her thousand thread count sheets and it would be like today never happened.
"You don't get to tell me that you love me, but only inside. If that's how this is going to be, then maybe we don't need that discussion after all." Casey dabs her eyes, then stuffs the tissue in her pocket. She gives Alex one last glance, then leaves, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Alex stands in the foyer for too long before going to lock the door.
Alex oversleeps the next morning, and even though she's doing a passable Tasmanian Devil impression, whirling about through her shower, closet and then out the door, the only thing she can think about was how long the night felt. She had laid in bed for hours after Casey left, watching the late evening light slant through the room before it turned to night, then seeing the sky start to brighten before her eyes shut.
She hadn't been able to stop picking apart every moment she could remember from their relationship, and with almost half a year, there had been plenty of moments she could recall. Should she have said something differently, done something differently? Her mind had turned every possibility over for hours, back and forth, and not just the evening's events. She hadn't had an spell like this in months. She'd been good about taking her medication, and it'd been helping.
It's more than just the medication that helps. It's Casey.
She knows she's been selfish. She hasn't done right by Casey, nor their relationship. It was — is — a real relationship, and Alex keeps it their secret, untouched by anything terrible outside, so that everything is fine. Alex never has to worry about their relationship, because it's always tucked away in its neat little corner, where Casey is there and dinner isn't always takeout and they can just be themselves.
As she walks into the office, trying not to think about how she drove on auto-pilot, Alex concludes that they should have been more than fine.
She's only ten minutes late, and she's lucky that she doesn't have court today, so she can try and plow through some files. That luck disappears, however, when she walks by the kitchen and hears Cutter trying to persuade Casey that the plea deal she had offered was the right move. That means that Casey likely isn't going to court; she's going to be in office, forty feet from Alex for virtually the entire day.
Alex keeps the door shut, her 'paperwork' soundtrack on as she writes out the first outline of her opening statement by hand. Every hour, she checks her email, but her phone stays in her bag, in a drawer. It's a routine she established early on in her career, something to try when it feels like everything is slipping away. That's an understatement as to how she feels right now, but she can't afford to concentrate on the knots in her stomach and headache behind her eyes.
Around one, there's a knock, and then a familiar head pokes in. It's Rollins.
"Detective," she says, not unkindly.
Rollins just nods. "Neither you nor Novak have come up for air today. Thought I'd check in while I was dropping off files for Hardwicke." She pauses. "Everything okay?"
"Fine," Alex responds. "Just paperwork."
"Novak's not looking so great herself. Would hate to see the both of you get sick at the same time." She looks like she's about to say more, but her phone goes. "Rollins," she says, giving Alex a flat-handed wave goodbye as she shuts the door behind her.
Alex turns her music up louder.
Managing to avoid Casey all day is a victory for Alex, but it rings hollow when she comes home. Her apartment is too quiet, and the kitchen is dark. Alex drops her takeout on the table as she goes to change, and she falls easily into routine, but it doesn't seem right without Casey. For the past few months, if they haven't been able to be in the same home, they'll be talking or texting throughout the night. The only notifications that Alex gets tonight are emails, and soon Alex has to keep her phone in another room so she doesn't keep looking at it, waiting for Casey's name to flash on the screen.
The night stretches on in silence, and it doesn't help Alex's insomnia. She hadn't been using any of her sleep aids for weeks, but tonight seems like as good a night to cave as any. She picks the strongest one from her meticulously ordered cabinet before sliding into the sheets. She knows it's unlikely that she'll have two quiet days in a row, and she won't be able to be as reclusive tomorrow as she was today. She barely registers the bed's emptiness as she drifts off, the pills doing their job, but the last thing on her mind, like every night of the previous months, is Casey.
It goes like this until Friday afternoon, Alex running on what essentially is cruise control, when Casey's at her office door. It's work related, Alex is sure, but that doesn't do anything to ease the apprehension. They'd been so good at staying away from each other, and now, Casey's not more than twenty feet away and it feels like all the oxygen is gone from the room.
Alex has gone through a dozen scenarios in her head on loop, but none of them had prepared her for this. She hadn't expected Casey to be at her door, none of the scenarios she had in her head featured Casey coming by her door first. It's throwing everything else, just a little off kilter.
"From Cutter," Casey says, setting the files on the table in front of Alex's desk. If this was any other day, Casey would have gone right up to the desk, into Alex's personal space.
"Thanks," Alex responds absently. She hasn't moved from her desk, her eyes following Casey the entire time.
Casey's about to leave, but she turns at the door. "Are you free tonight? I think we should talk." She's quiet, ensuring that her voice doesn't get picked up by anyone in the hallway. Alex thinks she sees dark circles under Casey's eyes, the telltale sign that she's been up just as restless as her, and it's enough to make her nod.
"I'll be home around seven." It's half past four now.
Casey nods, then leaves. Alex tries not to think about the butterflies in her stomach.
Alex is walking in the door at ten to seven when her phone pings. Casey wants to know if she should bring food, but seeing the date stamp and being reminded that they haven't been in touch for a few days is enough to make Alex's chest tighten again. Alex taps back, Sure, your turn to pick before she can stop herself. Even though they've been apart, Alex still knows whose turn it is to pick dinner, whose turn it is to do pick up dry cleaning.
Alex changes and takes out her contacts, and that fills the time between Casey's message and arrival. When Alex answers the door, Casey's holding a bag of Chinese and she looks tired. She comes in silently, and puts the take out on the coffee table before getting comfortable. "Tea?" Alex asks. She knows Casey likes jasmine tea with Chinese, and she's comforted a bit to see the other woman nod.
They sit on opposite ends of the couch, watching the news while eating chicken and noodles, and it almost feels normal to Alex, because half of their Fridays since they started dating were like this. The silence between them now isn't quite as suffocating as before, but Alex knows that the second Casey puts down her chopsticks, the night could go anywhere. Alex keeps half an eye on Casey, but she seems content to eat in silence, reading the ticker of scrolling headlines at the bottom.
Alex is already finished eating, and is drinking the last of her tea when Casey puts down her chopsticks and flicks the television to mute. "Are you ready?"
Alex looks at her, picks up the remote and turns it off completely. "No." Any other version of Alexandra Cabot would have said otherwise, but this is the Alex that only Casey knows.
The silence stretches on for maybe a beat too long, so Alex finds herself starting. She isn't sure she should tell Casey about her week, but if she can't be honest with her now, chances are another week like this will happen sooner rather than later. "I had to start taking Ambien again."
Casey's no stranger to Alex's virtual pharmacy, and she nods. "Doesn't it interact with the Luvox?"
Alex shakes her head. Casey had always made it a point to keep up with her prescriptions, which is somehow more endearing to Alex than the little notes Casey would put between the coffee cup and paper sleeve on coffee runs.
"Good," Casey says, then she starts fiddling with her necklace. She then drops it in favor of twisting a ring around her finger, and Alex looks away. Watching Casey fidget is making her even more nervous.
She's thought of too many scenarios in the past few days, so she just has to start with one of the half-dozen things she came up with. "I don't regret saying it the other night. I do love you."
Casey's eyes water, and Alex tries not to flinch. If the thought of Alex loving her makes her cry, this talk might be over before it starts. "You shouldn't regret it. I… I love you, too." Casey's voice is little more than a whisper. "I love you," she repeats, louder, but her voice still trembles. She doesn't move from where she sits at the end of the couch, she turns her head to look at Alex. "You already know what I need," she continues quietly.
Alex knows she's responsible for this subdued version of Casey, and it's up to her to make it right. Casey, the normally vibrant, verbose, beautiful Casey, is being more than clear with Alex. She can go toe to toe with the worst of humanity, war criminals and rapists and a Colombian drug cartel, but taking the next step with Casey seems to be on a different plane completely. There is no justice to fight for here, it's just them. Alex seldom prioritizes her own happiness and she knows it; the fact she has the chance to now, it's so foreign she can't quite wrap her head around it.
"I do," Alex replies, knowing that Casey needs that affirmation. Sometimes, in the dead of night when Alex couldn't sleep and Casey was on her back beside her, Alex would watch the light of New York play across her skin and think about how lucky she was. Other times, she'd be sitting in the vee of Casey's legs, reading and drinking coffee while Casey watched ESPN with the volume low, and realize she was never more content.
It's frightening how easily Casey was able to insinuate herself in Alex's life. Maybe the door had always been open, and Casey was the only one bold enough to walk through. Alex can't take too long to dwell on it, so she edges closer, sitting on the middle cushion now. They're not touching, but the distance isn't as insurmountable as it once seemed.
Casey doesn't say anything else, out-lawyering Alex again. She's blinked her tears away; up close, the tiredness in her eyes is more visible. Another pang of guilt digs at Alex. "It wasn't fair to you to keep our relationship closed off. I can't sit here and lie to you, tell you that I'm totally comfortable with the idea of putting ourselves out there."
"It's not fair to you either. You're allowed to to accept things you enjoy. I'd like to think you enjoyed being together," Casey replies.
The use of past tense makes Alex cringe, and then it clicks; she doesn't want to talk about them as something that happened.