Itsy-bitsy spoilers: ML: "Big Man on Mulberry Street"
Laura left Steele hiccuping on the couch under Mildred's loving care. Maddie sat at the desk, head resting on clenched fists. She was too worried about her missing partner to waste energy picking fights with an incapacitated Mr. Steele.
The bar David was patronizing was filled with smoke and bad R&B. The poor lighting made the air hazy and the gloom made the crowd in front of her blur even as their voices mingled with the echo. She tried to imagine the pristine Remington Steele in a place like this and drew a blank. Harry, maybe, Richard Blaine, certainly, but Remington Steele, no. Sometimes she thought it was a good thing he had multiple identities, because no one character was a full person.
He couldn't live as Remington Steele alone, any more than he could be Daniel's Harry for the rest of his life. He was a complex man; he had complex identities. Laura was just beginning to come to terms with that fact. Until he had a name and identity of his own, he was going to be some conglomeration of the lot, and the only consoling thought in that prospect was that at least one of them—probably the one without a name—needed her just as much as she'd come to need him.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and made her way down a close aisle between chair backs and barstools, checking faces and evading groping fingers. David was near the end, arguing with his neighbor about condiments.
"Catsup? What's that about, huh? What the cat threw up? Yeah, that's appetizing—"
The bartender was giving him the eye, probably deciding whether to throw him out the front door or the rear. Laura moved in quickly to slide an arm around his shoulders.
"My brother, Davy—they called to say he got out again. This was his favorite place, such a shame." She smiled at the bartender. "I'll just take him off of your hands."
She paid the tab, trying not to think about all the money that'd gone into making David slump into her side. "Ok, up you get." She drew his arm over her shoulder and half-dragged, half-walked him out of the bar. Outside she leaned him against her car and stepped back, crossing her arms.
He grinned at her and fished his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket, despite the dark. He tried to slide them on and poked himself in the eye instead. "Hey—Sis, these things are loaded."
She took them out of his hands and slid them on carefully. "Davy…"
"Yes? We going for a ride or something?"
"No. We're not going anywhere, yet."
"Then why'd you drag me out of the bar? Me and Bubba where having a hell of a time!"
"David, I think we need to talk."
He slumped back against the car. "Man, I hate it when you chicks say that. Whenever Maddie says that, I know I'm in trouble."
"About Maddie—"
"Nothing about Maddie. Maddie's history. I'm done with women—Maddie, too. All women. 'Cept you, Stats. You're all right."
"Thanks. But I think we both know Maddie's not history, Davy. She's your future, and you are fucking it up."
After a moment of silence, David raised his sunglasses to look at her. "Stats, you swear? I ain't never heard you swear before."
Laura tapped her foot impatiently. "Davy, focus. Tell me about Maddie Hayes."
David considered. "She smells good."
"That's a start."
"She's got great hair. Usually, I like brunettes, but man, that hair. Blond as a button." Laura let the mixed metaphor go, shaking her head. "And those legs. Did you get a load of those legs? God must have just sat down and stared when he made those legs.
"And then there're the eyes. Sometimes she looks at me, and I swear she knows everything about me. But that's just it. She don't know a damned thing about me. And she says things like 'But David," and "I can't believe you said that, David," and "How could you, David?" And I think, well, how the hell would you know?
"Geez, Stats—you know more about me than she does. We spent one night talking years ago, and you know me better than the partner I've been working with for two years. For. Working for. With? I don't know. But you listen, Stats. That's it. You listen. She doesn't listen. And if I told her all the stuff I want to tell her, I don't know what she'd do. Like my first wife. How the hell do I drop that bomb and walk away in one piece? She's so…"
He trailed off. Laura leaned in closer to hear him. "What? What is she?"
He sighed. "Perfect. She's perfect. And rigid. Being perfect—it makes her rigid, 'cause she's never found herself in a compromising situation and thought if I just bend, just a little, this will all go down a little bit easier. I love that about her. I mean—it's drives me crazy, 'cause it seems like I've been bending just a little all my life and now I'm about as straight as a pretzel, but man, she's so beautiful when she argues. She's perfect, and I just want her so much."
He looked up at the sky. The stars were masked by the city lights reflecting off the smog. He shook his head at the night. "If I was a better man, I'd walk away. She needs better; she deserves better. But I'm a pretzel and all I can do is hope she's got a thing for salty snack food."
Laura stared at him, thinking she'd go for salty snack food any day if she didn't have a main course and a bottle of champagne waiting for her back at the office. She shook her head to clear it and turned her thoughts back to her companion. "Tell her, David. Tell her anything you want, but don't do this to yourself, not when all you have to do is have a simple conversation."
"Simple, she says," he scoffed, pushing off from the car and swaying on his feet. "Nothing with Maddie is simple." He might have continued, but at that point he turned green and doubled over to wretch into the gutter.
Laura shook her head, sympathetic but not surprised. "That's probably why you like her," she observed wryly. "You're a masochist at heart."
He groaned, hands on his knees. "And you're a sadist. Take me home. What the hell are we waiting for?" He wretched again and then pushed off then car to right himself.
"That. Get into the car, Davy. Try not to be sick again. I really hope you remember where you live."
Remington Steele was beginning to sober up. The hiccups had disappeared and he had stopped slurring his words quite as much. Mildred fussed a little longer before he sent her home with the reassurance that he would survive. Maddie watched Mildred bustle out of the office and then moved to sit next to him on the coffee table.
"How was David?"
Steele clutched a bag of ice to his forehead. "Why not ask him yourself?"
She looked away, ashamed because her partner might be face down in a gutter somewhere and she wouldn't know. "You don't know David. If he saw me before he cooled down it would just be another shouting match. I might as well shove him into the bottle."
"All right." Steele considered her drawn face and white knuckle grip on the edge of the table. "But you do know him. What could send him on a bender like this?"
Maddie laughed, a little bitterly. "Me. What else? His family's on the east coast. We argued and I said some stupid things and so did he and before you know it, we're reenacting a world war. Again."
"Just like that? What did you argue about?"
She shrugged. "I don't really remember. You, I think, and Laura."
"Me and Laura?"
"I said you were taking advantage and all the credit, and David said maybe she liked it that way and then it all spun out of control, and we were talking about us and my habit of under appreciating him."
Steele smiled dryly and shook his head. "Take a tip from me, Madelyn, never take anything for granted. It can all disappear tomorrow. Leprechaun gold—that's all life is. Grab a fistful while you can."
She blinked, taken aback. "You really mean that, don't you? You've really lost it all before."
"Twice. Life hasn't always been kind. I suspect your Mr. Addison would tell you much the same."
"Oh, David…"
Minutes passed in silence and stretched out into hours. Finally, Maddie spoke. "I lost it all. Just once, but it was enough."
Steele turned his head to consider her cool expression in the moonlight. "I am truly sorry, Madelyn."
She laughed, a little bitterly. "You are, aren't you? Good."
"Have I missed something?"
Maddie sighed and sifted on the coffee table. "Do you remember Ronald Sawyer, Mr. Steele?"
"Ronnie?" he asked with surprise. "Haven't seen the man in an age—an absolute age! Let me think—the last time we met was—"
"Rio—six or seven years ago. Am I close?"
He shrugged noncommittally. "Could be."
"You introduced us. I was still modeling; Ronnie was a seemingly dull but dutiful accountant, and he called you Harry."
Cold chills of pure terror ran through his veins.
"I didn't remember until I saw Ronnie again. Imagine my surprise to realize the man who'd pancaked on me the year before had also introduced me to the man who stole all my money and ran away to start a casino."
"Maddie—"
"Is your real name Harry, or is that just another affectation?"
"It's just a name, Madelyn. They're all just names. They're not me."
"And who are you, Mr. Steele?"
He sighed and looked up to the ceiling. "Devil if I know."
"Does Miss Holt know?"
"If anyone does, it's her."
"I meant about your many names."
He turned back to her, his eyes incredulous. "Who do you think gave me half of them?"
Maddie sucked in a breath. "She's an accomplice?"
"To what? Investigating? She's my partner. She knows more about me than any other living soul. Probably even more than I do. I'm bent, Madelyn, but I'm not a criminal. Not anymore. And let me tell you, this clean living stuff isn't easy."
"But you were a criminal?"
"I stole things. I tell myself it was only from people who could well afford it, but the truth is, when you're starving and frozen inside and out, you'll steal from an orphan just for a hot cup of soup. And I have, Maddie. And much worse."
"Who were you robbing when we met in Rio?"
"A baron? No, a countess. You should have seen the sapphire she had—big as your eye. Just as blue, too. I spent two simply divine weeks in Morocco on the proceeds from that gem alone."
Maddie was silent.
"Where did Ronnie run off to with your money, Maddie?"
"South America. David says we'll never get him or that money out of there. He took everything from me. Years of hard work, fledgling independence, my faith in mankind—everything. The world seems a lot colder now. Darker. I know that's reality. I know I was naive. But sometimes I just miss it. Life was a lot simpler. Black and white. Good things should happen to good people. They don't, but they should."
She sounded so lost and confused. Steele sighed and sat up on the couch, resting his feet to the floor. He took her hands with a squeeze and drew her in to sit beside him with his arm around her.
"I'm sorry, Maddie," he whispered into her hair. "I'm so very sorry."
"I know."
"He'll pay. I have friends in every walk of life. I'll get your money back."
"I don't think I'd want it now."
He nodded. "All right. But he doesn't get to keep it. I'll make some phone calls."
He squeezed her shoulder and Maddie buried her face in his chest, relieved to let go just for a moment—to let every façade she maintained so stringently fall away without having to worry. The man beside her was just as exposed, just as vulnerable. And just as relieved to let go. She realized dimly that the man she was clinging to now was not Remington Steele. He wasn't anyone she'd ever met before—not in Rio, not in LA. She didn't know who he was; he probably didn't know either. Laura might, but she was still sorting out David. Maddie groped for a name—only one sprang to mind. "Thank you, Harry."
Laura walked into the pitch black office half expecting Mr. Steele to have departed for the evening. She flicked the light on and smiled when he groaned his protest to her from the couch.
"Laura, the light's too loud."
"Oh, good." She nodded with sympathy and walked in to throw her purse and hat down on a chair. "We're feeling better then?"
He pushed off the couch and dragged himself upward, swaying woozily. "We are not feeling a blasted thing," he gritted out with a long suffering sigh. "You have no conception of my misery."
"A ton of bricks on your head?" she asked, laughing on her way into the bathroom.
"If only," he said with a grimace. "Like a herd of baby elephants racing around up there."
She returned and handed him a glass of water. "Teach you to try to out drink David Addison."
He nodded a few times before his pain relay system caught up with him. He took a sip and lay back down. "It was an education, to be sure. How is he?"
She sat down beside him and kicked off her shoes. "He'll do. I took him home and put him to bed. The place is empty, though. And I mean empty. Barely a scrap of furniture anywhere. He might as well live in the office; it'd be more comfortable. But he left most of the alcohol in the gutter, though, and his head will thank him for it in the morning, which is more than can be said for you."
"My head will be fine in the morning; it just hates me now. I'm not too fond of it at the moment, either."
"I'll bet. How was Ms. Hayes?"
He shrugged. "An officer and a lady. She was too concerned about David to have a go at me, so that was a nice change. I sent her home with Fred; her worrying was playing havoc with my head."
"Rats," she said on a sigh, curling her toes into the carpet. "Gentlemanly gestures aside, I had hoped for a ride home at this point."
He closed his eyes in agreement. "Chivalry is such a burden."
Laura bit her lower lip. "Do you think you could find some room on that couch?"
He cracked open one eyelid and grinned at her—the same wonderfully tempting, con artist grin—the kind the wolf probably gave Little Red Riding Hood before he ate her. "Well, if all else fails, I suppose I could let you have the top."
The Friday flight to New York was less than eventful. Laura slept, snuggled into Steele's side the way she never would have allowed herself to be if she had been conscious. He pressed a kiss into her hair and smiled, enjoying the moment before it disappeared.
In the seat ahead of them, awkward silence reigned. Maddie and David were operating on a quickly patched together peace that threatened to give way under the slightest pressure. It was a familiar, if uncomfortable position to be in. Maddie considered reopening their last discussion and then resolved to leave well enough alone. The plane was far too crowded to survive another blowup argument.
She took out the paper she'd bought on the way out of LA and flipped her way through to the crossword. Perfectly mind-numbing. Beside her, David closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
Somewhere over the Great Lakes he opened his eyes. He watched her stare out the window at the clouds, pencil pressed to her lips in the pose he always thought of as the pens-ess. The sun lit her hair from behind, making her look even more angelic than ever, and suddenly losing the argument didn't seem like such a high price to pay, so long as he got to keep her a little longer. He leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Know any five letter words for idiot?"
She turned to meet his eyes with a smile. "Maddie?"
"That's six."
"Well, she's an idiot," she said, sighing with relief as he grinned back at her.
By the wee hours of Sunday morning, the reception was still in full swing. Laura sipped champagne through a straw, watching the blurry lights move across the dance floor. She pushed the glass away from her in disgust, shaking her head. "Uh. They'll have to roll me onto the plane tomorrow."
Maddie nodded in agreement. "I wonder if David could carry me back to the hotel. This is one night I'd be willing to compromise on Women's Lib."
Laura turned to watch David, who was leading the party's conga line with his tie wrapped sideways around his head and his sunglasses sliding down his nose. She turned back to Maddie with a broad smile. "I'd like to see him try." She went back to sucking champagne with her straw.
Steele tut-tutted his disapproval behind her. He reached around her to remove the offending glass. "Sip it or miss it, Laura. That's no way to treat a nice Dom Perignon."
Laura stared at the now empty space before her. "Hey…"
Steele dropped into the empty seat beside Maddie and surveyed the general mayhem before him. "Quite the party."
Maddie's lips curled up in an amused smile. "Righteous, you might say."
He leaned back in his seat, assessing her expression as best he could. Her face revealed nothing to his well trained eye; she stared him down with a cool gaze. He slumped again, impressed despite his best intentions. "Why do I have the feeling that's a pointed reference?"
Maddie laughed and sipped her wine. "No reason."
A waiter moved around their table and stopped to collect glasses and fresh orders. Laura looked to Steele. "What can I sip through a straw?"
He quirked one eyebrow at her. "Water?" he suggested.
She sighed and looked up at the amused waiter with a woebegone expression. "I'll have water. And a straw. He's such a champagne snob."
"I have good taste," Steele defended himself. "Although it would seem I should be reassessing my criteria when it comes to the feminine company I keep."
Laura stuck her tongue out at him. He shook his head. "You are the poster child for maturity, my dear."
Their plane left Manhattan at five on Sunday afternoon. Laura curled into herself, already feeling the ill effects of her three day binge. "This was probably not the most attractive weekend we've ever spent together."
Steele smiled affectionately and brushed a kiss along her hairline. "On the other hand, no one shot at us, no one died, and you didn't have to spring me from wrongful imprisonment to prove my innocence."
She sat up straighter at the thought. "You're right," she said, laughing in amazement. "We did it. We took a vacation and didn't stumble into a case. We're free!"
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Laura. It was only a weekend. Who knows what could happen, if say, we took a week's sojourn in the Caribbean?" he suggested, blissfully unaware that a day later he would be using her shoulder for a pillow while on the run from cops, nuns, and a particularly loathsome loan shark named Pittsburg Phil and whispering vehemently, "This proves nothing, Laura, nothing…"
Laura narrowed her eyes at him. "And I suppose you'd like to find out?"
He grinned. "Purely in the pursuit of academic research, Laura, of course."
She rolled her eyes. "At the risk of sounding like Mildred, hooey, Mr. Steele."
He shrugged, anticipating another six hours ahead in which to change her mind. He changed the subject. "Weren't David and Madelyn supposed to meet us here?"
"Let me check," Laura said, digging into her purse for her daily planner. She came up with two boarding passes instead. "Oh, no…"
"Troubles?"
She blushed and bit her lower lip. "Apparently tipsy Laura has nimble fingers." She handed him the boarding passes made out in the names of Madelyn Hayes and David Addison. "I guess she thought it would do them good to be stranded alone together in a strange city."
He grinned, slipping an arm around her shoulders to pull her closer and kiss her forehead. "Who could have guessed it? Tipsy Laura's a little thief!"
David sat at a bar, carefully ignoring the beer beside him. He watched Maddie swaying by the juke box. Someone shouted a joke into her ear, and she laughed, tossing her hair back so it caught the dim light and scattered it in his direction. There were, he considered, a lot worse places he could be.
LA for one. He could be on his way back to LA and squabbles at the office if Laura hadn't taken matters into her own hands. He wasn't worried. Stats would never intentionally strand him on the east coast without a backup plan.
He pushed off from the bar and made his way through the crowd to Maddie. He watched her sway up close for a moment, feeling slightly lightheaded, and then he pressed a warm hand to the small of her back.
"Dance with me?" he whispered into her ear.
She looked around with surprise. "Here? To this music?"
He smirked into her hair. "What did you think you were just doing?"
"What? That? No, that wasn't—"
"I'll sing," he offered, cutting her off.
"Sing?"
"It'll be great—just trust me."
"David—"
"Com'on, Maddie—this is not the worst thing I've talked you into."
"Mm."
She didn't sound convinced, but she came into his arms all the same, resting one hand on his shoulder and leaning in closer.
He began to turn slowly and pressed his cheek to hers, the better to whisper into her ear.
"Someday—when I'm awfully low,
When the world is cold,
I will feel a glow just thinking of you…
And the way you look tonight.
Yes you're lovely, with your smile so warm
And your cheeks so soft,
There is nothing for me but to love you,
And the way you look tonight."
She pulled back, her eyes glossy with gathering tears. "David—"
"I know, Maddie—I know."
Something in his voice made her think that he probably did. She stopped pulling away and waited for him to continue.
"We're not ready yet. There's so much we have to deal with—stuff we can't even imagine about each other yet. Stuff that's gonna come back to bite us later—I know that."
He pulled her closer until he could smell her hair and swayed a little with her in his arms. "But we're not done yet. It's gonna take years to have all the arguments we're gonna have.
"And maybe we don't make it. Maybe years down the line we decide it's not worth the arguments and the pain, and we cash in. And that's ok. Someday you may leave my ass cold and that's ok, too. Just give me tonight, Maddie. Just dance with me tonight and pretend like tomorrow will never come, and I'll disappear in the morning if you ask me to."
She nodded, not wanting to ruin the moment as he stared down into her eyes and begged her to let him in. She pulled him closer and rested her cheek against his shoulder, swaying while he finished singing Frankie—just a whisper in her ear—soft and sure. And after he stopped singing, she gave the silence a few more minutes, just to enjoy it a little longer. The world didn't end; David didn't disappear, and when she lifted her head from his shoulder, she found his eyes waiting for hers.
She smiled and stroked the soft wisps of hair at the nape of his neck. "You'd leave tomorrow if I asked you to?"
He smirked and looked away for a moment. "Maybe."
She laughed and leaned up on tippy-toe to kiss him softly, just because. "Liar."
A/N: Case closed! Thank you for coming along for the ride. I hope you enjoyed it. There's a small companion piece in the works; Steele has a promise to keep after all. So go review and get the creative juices flowing :) I want to hear from you!