I'm sorry this has taken a while - the school system here is different, so I'm currently three months away from my finals and one month away from the due date of a couple of very, very important papers. But here it is! I just want to say that no matter how long I take between updates, I'll probably be posting to this story for a long time - I can't help but love these two together, and I want to keep writing for them.
This chapter gets a little sappier than usual, but the dreaminess of it is my excuse.
dreams (hers)
She grows up not just with musicals but with black and white. Her fathers labelled anything on TV as low-class and gave her their set of video tapes instead, packed with old movies.
It's because of this that she dreams as she does - charming men, endearingly awkward men; olden-day clothes, with long yet teasing and beautiful dresses, and suits and hats and bow-ties. She loves old cars, old music, the way people used to talk - everything. Her misguided fashion in early high school was her attempt at getting that style - sweaters and printed skirts and proper shoes (never sneakers).
And the women in these movies are stronger than the fictional women the girls of her age watch - these women are reporters or actresses or, at the very least, dreamers, who go out of their way to do what they want. And the men always eat out of the palms of their hands. That's something to want, isn't it? Something that she should believe is possible?
Once, when she and Jesse were dating in high school, they had spent an entire rainy afternoon in the entertainment room at her house, skipping the usual musicals for something different. She rambled, getting too wrapped up in the details as she tends to do, but when she glanced up at him as Audrey Hepburn hummed dreamily about a moon river (she loves watching people react to this scene), Jesse was staring right back at her, smiling, looking genuinely interested. She couldn't help but kiss him.
-x-
It's only a few weeks into their relationship this time when Mark decides to throw a Halloween party for everyone on shows currently running on Broadway, which he presents as a party for "fancy people" so his guests come as people, not as creatures.
It's easy to figure out what she'll be wearing - the elegant yellow dress she chooses comes up to her knee, but the cut and heft of it suits the women she used to watch - classy, beautiful, confident. As she exits her taxi that evening and hooks her arm with Jane's, she doesn't feel the need to look for Jesse, even though she wants to.
Fifteen minutes into the party, she steps away from her friend to get a drink, spins around, and steps back again in surprise when she sees him standing in front of her. Jesse's in an old-fashioned suit, in a dark coffee brown; a fedora rests on his head, tilted to the side. He smirks at her smugly when she reaches forward and touches the material, dazed and speechless.
"Whatdya think, doll?" he drawls, perfectly in-character.
She finally grins, trailing her fingers across his chest to tug at the tie (predictably black - Jesse doesn't seem to be capable of dressing without at least a little black in his outfit). "Not bad, mister," she allows.
He reaches up to flick at his hat, tipping it further to the side. "And may I say you look beautiful?"
"You may." She curtsies just a little. Her hands stay on his chest, fiddling with non-existent lint, and his arms come up around her waist easily. Their pose is familiar, but in these clothes, in this orange lighting, it feels like something from her old movies - quiet conversations under streetlights, people pushing past them but no one paying attention.
She breathes this moment in, trying to push back a sudden, unreasonable surge of tears. "You remembered," she says softly. The thing is, Jesse remembering something from nine years ago and going through the trouble of doing it makes her happy, but people do do things for, so that's not the reason she's touched. The difference is in the way he keeps looking at her, warm and pleased. It's like indulging her isn't just to please her - it's like he's happy because she is. She recognises this because she feels it, too - she'll always be happy to be there for him, to help him be happy.
"I couldn't forget," he corrects her. When she looks up at him quickly, surprised, he grins at her. "Not after the number of times you made me watch The Philadelphia Story."
She laughs and hits him lightly on the shoulder. He watches her, pleased, but when he leans in to kiss her she pulls away. She holds her hands behind her back and looks at him mischievously, her eyes sparkling. "A lady doesn't give a man her time without a couple of drinks in her," she intones in her best Hepburn (Katherine, not Audrey, of course) impression.
"Of course," he says, sliding back into the role easily. "Lead the way, ma'am."
-x-
It's early the next morning when the party ends, and as they walk back to her building, the shops along the street are bristling quietly into action. They pause by the florist's as fresh flowers are unloaded from a van, where he buys her a single rose and presents it to her with a flourish. She smiles. Flowers aren't her style or his, but it suits the mood and their clothing.
When he drops her off at her place, he kisses her firmly against her door, taps on the frame, then tells her good night. She plays with the stem of the rose between her fingers as she watches him walk away, and she can hear him whistling as he turns into the elevator lobby.
This soft sound, more than anything else that happened between them before, makes her think that maybe she's going to be with him for good.
One day I'll move out of this apartment, she thinks, stepping inside and locking the door behind her. She'll probably live with him. She'll have to convince her dad to get used to him. She'll need to get ready to steel herself against his quick temper 24-7. She'll have to get used to him shaking her awake every morning because he always forgets to set the alarm on his bedside clock (she only wakes up by alarms, and he manages it with some kind of internal body clock).
He has far too many products to use on his hair, even though it's shorter now. He gets a little impatient with her whenever she goes to buy the paper every morning, because she always talks to the newsagent for twenty minutes because Rachel knows she's lonely. He has a tendency to brood. He has a closet with too many black clothes.
But she'll deal with it. One day she will marry this man.
dreams (his)
They return from their honeymoon just three days before the Emmys, where he wins an award for his performance in a mini-series. He gets up, begins to walk away (just a little bit dazed), then turns and rushes back to kiss her quickly.
As he climbs up on stage confidently, the feeling of her laugh against her lips is what reminds him to smile.
The thing about the award he wins is that at this point in the ceremony, no one's interested - it's not really a major category. He makes his thank-yous brief and doesn't bother with the forced humour to keep them engaged, and after a second's consideration, decides to get a little sappy (they just got married a week ago, after all).
"And this is to my wife - " and he gulps here, barely noticeably, just as he notices the audience's buzzing softening slightly. "For how much you've supported and tolerated me, and how quickly you manage to shut me up, and how even when you annoy me, you inspire me - for all of that you deserve half of this award." She's sitting near the back of the room, but he knows she must be smiling. "But I'm selfish, and you deserve one on your own, so go get it yourself."
The crowd chuckles (actually chuckles!) at him appreciatively, and he bows and walks away so he can end on a high note. When he leaves from backstage and goes back to his seat, she grabs his hand tightly and settles against his side. They stay silent.