Hi again! A few of you may be wondering why it took me so long to post another chapter of this fanfic… First of, I hope you're all doing well and are starting this new year with a great attitude, and that your year is full of good things… Secondly, I'd like to apologize because I know there were a few of you, even new readers, who were asking when I was going to post something and longed for the story to be continued… And thirdly, I'd like to tell you a little about the why. Dry and simple, I lost my muse/mojo/inspiration (or whatever you want to call it) for a while, for different reasons and for none at all; also, real life matters got in the way sometimes too, but I've missed this, and I've continued watching the show all this time though, and I still plan to continue writing about it. I just can't tell you exactly when I'll be posting the next chapter, but I hope it's soon. It all depends on how the ideas flow and the time I have to write and post… Without more to say, I hope you like this chapter. It ain't much, but I hope you enjoy it, and you know you can always let me know what you think in the review section or on Twitter/X.
SAME, BUT BETTER
Lea didn't know exactly what to say. For a minute, she almost thought Shaun was joking with such a proposal, but he's not one to make lots of jokes in general, especially not about their relationship. She's usually the one who takes things lightly and as they come, while he's the one who takes everything seriously. Was he serious this time, though?
Choosing to give it the benefit of the doubt, thinking he might actually be joking, she let out a chuckle while still looking into his eyes.
"What?" Shaun asked, wondering what she found so funny.
"I should properly move back in?" She raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"Yes" Shaun simply said, moving his arms from around her and going back to his usual position with his fingers intertwined.
She chuckled again. "It's not that simple, you know?"
"I can help you pack and move. It is simple" She said with a small shrug.
"Well, I'm not talking about packing and moving all my things back in here, Shaunie" She smiled at him. "It's more complicated than that. Things are different now"
"What's different?"
"Let's see… Everything?" She answered with a tad of sarcasm and chuckled again.
"You've lived here before; I don't understand what is so complicated"
"It's not the same anymore. Back then, we were roomies, pals, buddies, and now we're... more... a real thing, a better thing, that's for sure, but now we're together as boyfriend and girlfriend, and that complicates things"
"We are the same people, in the same place, doing the same things and you've been living here for the past three months" He said, trying to find some sense in her argument.
"Yeah, but it's more than that, Shaun. It's a bigger deal now… I hope it is… I mean, living together as boyfriend and girlfriend means more commitment, which comes with more trust, and...I don't know… I don't think we're there yet" She let out a soft sigh and looked at him.
"You don't trust me?" He looked into her eyes.
"What? No, I mean yes, of course I trust you, but I… I think I need more"
"More?" He repeated after her, not knowing what she meant and wanting her to be specific.
"Yeah, I guess…"
"More what?"
—Right… What else do I need?— She thought while staring at the floor as if she were looking for the answer there.
"I…" She tried to rummage through her thoughts. "I actually don't know… maybe time… maybe…" She shrugged. "I'm not sure, Shaun" She shook her head slightly and looked at him again.
Shaun fiddled with his fingers and glanced around the room, feeling confused. It was a pretty easy decision and move for him, but he couldn't understand why it wasn't the same for her.
"Why don't we get back to celebrating the start of the new year and leave this conversation for another day?" She asked, trying to change the topic and get back to the happy mood they were in.
"Okay" Shaun simply said, and with a grin, Lea walked to the kitchen, where she pulled out a couple shot glasses and a bottle of tequila.
"Tequila, STAT?"
"Oh yeah" Shaun grinned too and joined his girlfriend in the kitchen.
A few days later, in an impulse, Lea packed most of her things and left Shaun's apartment while he was at work, which, in retrospect, might not have been the best move since he freaked out thinking she was leaving him, and she had to assure him that she wasn't breaking up with him. She told him that she had to go back to her apartment to get a few things sorted before getting back to work since she had to start going back to the hospital every now and then to supervise things and to formally introduce herself as the new head of the IT department, which actually wasn't just an invented excuse; she actually had to do all that, but she also wanted time to think because Shaun kept bringing up the moving in topic, and she didn't know how else to tell him that she needed time and some space to think about what she wanted and what she was going to do.
"He wants me to move in with him, like properly move in with him" Lea explained to her friend Sarah through a video call, sitting on a stool by the kitchen counter of her apartment.
"And?" Sarah asked.
"We drank our asses off the rest of the night, but he reminded me the day after, and I told him I'd think about it, but I'm not ready"
"Wait. So you just left his place and got back to your apartment without giving him a heads-up just because you need space and time to think?"
Lea rolled her eyes and sighed. "I know I sort of fucked up there, and it was impulsive, but he kept bringing it up every night, and I just didn't know what to tell him. I already talked to him, though; he thought I was leaving him"
"I wonder why…" Sarah said with sarcasm and chuckled.
"Ugh, I know. I feel bad enough, okay? Can you just be my friend and tell me what to do?"
Sarah laughed some. "I can't tell you what to do, Lea; it's not my relationship"
"I know, but I wasn't to hear your thoughts on it. I don't know what to do; I have too much going on in my head between work and this…" She sighed. "He thinks it's such a simple decision, but it's not. Not for me!"
"Why though? You've known him for like 4 years, lived with him for around one, and you've dated for almost a year. Why do you think you're not ready for this? Not that you have to be and like, comply only to make him happy or something. I'm just wondering what's tormenting you"
"We've barely dated for a year… I mean, it's been a year, yes, but it's felt like a horribly long year, and yet, as for our relationship, it feels like barely anything, apart from these couple of months I've spent with him. Distance made everything feel weird, you know? The damn pandemic and lockdown… It's like there was a pause, and then it resumed again a couple of months ago… As if we've only properly dated for the past 3 months or so…"
Sarah nodded "This damn virus… But still, you've lived with him before; you know his ways, and he knows yours. What are you so scared of? What's bothering you?"
"I… It feels like it's too soon, like we need more, like I need more… I don't know" Lea sighed at her indecisiveness and shook her head. "What if it doesn't work out?"
"We can't know for sure if it's going to or not, but you're thinking way ahead again. Just take one day at a time"
"It's just… there's moving in together, and then the next thing is… you know… I don't think we're there yet. I think there is a lot for us to do before we even start thinking about something like that…Or, what if I come to the realization that I don't really want what comes next at all?"
"That's valid! No one is saying that you have to stay with him just because you said yes to being his girlfriend or that you will have to marry him if you agree to move in with him. No one knows if it will work or not. As far as we know, he could also be the one who's like, you know what, this isn't working; we should end it. But these are things you need to talk about with him… Not everyone who moves in with their partner ends up marrying them, you know? And if that happens, well, it's something that happens, and you two will have to move on"
Lea sighed, thinking about what her friend just said, and then she eventually spoke again.
"I feel like this thing with him is bigger than anything I've ever had with anyone else before. I feel like it's a good thing, but at the same time, I feel like now that I'm in it, something's going to happen; maybe I'll screw it or something, and he won't be okay. I mean, I love him, but I'm scared that if something happens, and we break up, he's not going to be okay, like really not okay, and it's going to be my fault, and I won't be able to move on from that, because that's the last thing I want to do; I don't want to hurt him again or him to hate me. This is why I used to be in denial and avoid this before, because I know myself, and I chose to rather have a good friendship with him where there could be some misunderstandings, but we could work on them and fix things than a relationship where I could hurt him and there would be no way back, and I'd lose him forever…"
"You know the exact same thing can be done in a romantic relationship, right? I mean, there will be misunderstandings, and you can work on them and fix things up"
"I know, it's just… This is so different… The way he feels things, the way he does things and thinks about things…" She sighed. "I'm not saying it's bad; it's just… different…"
"So it's his autism again? You still don't think you can handle it?"
"No, I want to be with him. I love him regardless; we're past that. I'm just scared of doing something stupid and fucking things up, and I don't want to rush things"
"Okay, first of all, nothing has even happened yet, and you're already assuming that if anyone fucks up it will be you; he might be autistic, very responsible, organized and whatnot, but he's not perfect either, you know? He's still learning a lot, and even if you have more experience than him or whatever, you're still learning too, and you two still have a lot to learn about each other. Either of you is going to do or say something at some point that will mess with the other, but just because you're now in a relationship doesn't mean things can't get fixed. And secondly, if you don't want to rush things, then tell him! I'm sure he'll understand"
Lea sighed again and nodded. "I think loving someone shouldn't be stressful, but loving him sometimes is, and I hate myself for even saying or thinking that… I just really want this to be the good thing… I think it is…"
"If you need time, tell him. If you want to take things slow, also tell him. But you need to work on this together, because there's two in a relationship; it can't just be about what he wants and needs or the other way around."
Lea nodded and stared at the surrounding nothingness, lost in thought.
In order to officially introduce herself as the new head of the IT department, Lea scheduled a meeting at the hospital with the whole department, but, ever since she was announced as the new boss, there were a few who were not happy with the president's decision to put her in charge, because for some, she was too young and inexperienced and thought others or even themselves would have been a better candidate for the job; some of them even wanted to quit but, because of the pandemic, they couldn't exactly afford such a thing.
So Lea not only had to deal with people not believing in her and all the work that her boss had left pending, but she also had to still think about whether she was going to move back in with Shaun or not.
"God dammit…" She muttered as she looked under the sofa cushions and then pushed her hand through the edges of the sofa.
"What are you looking for?
"My damn keys! I need to get to my apartment to shower, and change, and go to work, and I can't find my goddamn keys" Lea expressed in a stressed manner.
"You wouldn't need to go back to your apartment to shower and change there if you moved back in with me" Shaun replied, and he glanced around the room while Lea still moved around looking for her keys.
"Shaun, please don't. I don't have time for that today… We undressed here last night, right?" She waved her hand around the living area, trying to think where her keys could be.
She basically tried to recall her every move the night before. Maybe her keys fell off her jacket's pocket even before they got to Shaun's apartment.
The day before, Lea found out that a drive-in cinema had opened in San Jose, since regular cinemas were still closed due to the pandemic, so she and Shaun agreed to go watch a movie that night, but then Lea got handsy and they ended up leaving the drive-in cinema before the movie even ended, just to get back to Shaun's apartment and have sex. They were in such a rush that they didn't even make it to the bedroom. So her keys could have fallen somewhere inside the apartment, or maybe even in her car.
Shaun walked from the kitchen to the living area, then got down on his knees while looking at Lea, and she raised an eyebrow wondering what he was doing, but he proceeded to bend and look under the sofa, then he reached under and pulled out Lea's keys.
"Thank goodness!" She grabbed her keys and grinned at Shaun as he stood back up from the floor. "My hero" She leaned up on her tiptoes to peck his lips quickly.
"Will you have time later to talk about you moving back in?"
Lea's happiness left her body and tensed up once again.
"I don't know, Shaunie" She shook her head. "I literally have too much to do at work; I don't think I have time to think about that right now. I have to prove to people that I'm not in charge just because the former boss died, but because I'm good at what I do, and I deserve to be where I am. I earned that damn position, but apparently I need to prove it."
"You don't have to prove anything to me" Shaun replied.
"No, but there are a bunch of people in the IT department who are unhappy with Glassman's decision"
"I can ask Glassman to talk to them"
"No" She almost warned him with a stern look. "Please don't… Let me deal with this on my own, it's my job"
"Okay" He said confidently, knowing his girlfriend could to anything she puts her mind to, but he wasn't going to let the moving topic slide. "When do you think you'll have time?"
Lea sighed. "I…" She looked at him, wondering herself when she'd have time to even organize her thoughts. "I have to go" She said as she moved closer to him and pushed herself up on her tiptoes again to kiss him goodbye. "I love you" She said to him before heading out of the apartment, leaving Shaun standing in the middle of his living area.
Later that day, in between fixing some coding errors, Lea sighed and leaned over to rest her head on her desk, letting out a long and heavy sigh, swearing in her mind that people were trying to sabotage her so she would quit, and if that was the case, she wasn't going to let them win, but she needed a break or else her brain was going to explode.
She checked the time and realized it was Shaun's usual lunchtime; she was hungry and needed to get her mind off work for a moment, but she hesitated about joining him for lunch because she was sure he was going to ask about what she had been avoiding.
—If you don't talk to him now, he'll keep asking, and it will continue to be one more thing to stress over… just talk to him already…— She thought.
Sure, work was a lot for her to have in mind, stress about and not have time for anything else, but she had lied to Shaun. Ever since he asked her to move back in with him, she went over the matter in her head once, twice, thrice, and many more times, and it would always get to the same conclusion, but for some reason, she was somewhat afraid of telling him because she didn't know how he would react, but her brain was right; in order to get that off her chest and have a bit of peace of mind, she had to talk to him, because there was no longer a point in making the matter bigger or making him wait longer; there was no more to think about.
So she got off her chair and walked out of her brand-new office that was still waiting to be decorated and organized to her liking.
She went to the resident's lounge, but only Claire was there, reading, so she apologized for interrupting and asked if she'd seen Shaun, to which Clair answered that he was in the break room. Lea thanked her and headed to said room, where Shaun was also reading and eating a sandwich.
She peeked her head in first, making sure he was indeed in there, then walked into the room, and Shaun looked at her immediately.
"Hey…" She awkwardly greeted him.
"Hello" He answered with his mouth half full, then wiped his lips with a napkin.
"So… I lied to you, I think…" She confessed fiddling with her fingers, and Shaun patiently looked at her. "I have been thinking about your uhm - proposal… a lot, actually…" She locked eyes with him, like trying to find a clue to what he was thinking, but there was nothing, so she continued. "Remember you basically said that, just because it's us living in the same place again, it would be the same as before?" Shaun nodded. "Well, the context has changed; therefore, it's not the same anymore…" Shaun thought for a second, then looked at her again, and Lea continued. "Our feelings have changed since then, so the situation has changed"
"I still love you the same way I did back then; that hasn't changed" He said with a small shrug.
"Yeah, but it's not the same. I loved you back then too, but it was different. It's not the same to love someone and care for them as a friend than as a boyfriend or girlfriend, just like two roommates living together is different from a couple living together. It's the same people in the same place, but the context is very different… Once our feelings changed, everything changed" She added with an anxious nod at the end.
"I loved you as more than a friend, and I wanted to be your boyfriend, but you were with Jake, and then you didn't want to be my girlfriend. I even still feel the same way when I'm with you… happy" He shrugged again and even smiled a bit with the last sentence.
Lea stared at him for a moment, in a mix of shock from him mentioning the past, and guilt from remembering the night she told him they wouldn't work because he's autistic and the night he went to her place with a bat because he wanted to damage her car; then she sighed.
"Well…" She cleared her throat. "Maybe your feelings didn't change, but mine did… We're no longer just friends; we're a couple now, and don't get me wrong, I feel happy when I'm with you too, just like I did before too, but moving in as a couple is a big step that couples take; it usually takes a year or sometimes even more for couples to do it because it means a lot. It means a lot when it happens, and most of the time it sets the course, the pace or whatever for what comes next"
Shaun stared at her, slightly confused.
"Like, I don't want you to think that I'm not taking this seriously, that I'm not committed, that I don't love you enough, that I'm flaking, or that I don't trust you, because I really want to be with you. I love you with all my heart, and I trust you with my life, but…" She took a deep breath and moved to sit on the chair next to him, facing him, and he looked at her after taking a sip of his water.
"I've only lived with someone else before, I mean, with another boyfriend, and it didn't end well…" She continued and shook her head slightly, remembering the past quickly. "And I'm not saying the same story is going to repeat itself because I know you're not like that; I know you would never do anything like that to anyone"
Shaun simply shook his head in response to that.
"God, I don't even know why I'm bringing this up…" She muttered almost to herself, glancing down at her hand on her lap, then looked back at Shaun and continued. "So, I'm not afraid of having the same thing happen again, which is actually one of the reasons I'm in this relationship, because you're different… unlike anyone I've ever date… Anyway, thinking about everything, if we're realistic, yes, it's been like a year, or something, since we became a couple, but because of the pandemic and the whole lockdown thing, we haven't had much time to properly date, so, to me at least, it kind of feels like our relationship was put on pause and it basically started over some months ago, which makes me feel like we're not ready, like our relationship is not ready to take that next huge step yet…" She pressed her lips together, still looking into his eyes, then took another deep breath before continuing. "I wanted - I still want us to take our time and take things slow, you know, enjoy the ride, because we still have a lot to learn about ourselves and about each other and this relationship… BUT, while thinking about everything, I also realized that, if I think about us, say a year from now, I can't imagine us not living together... So…" She nodded, taking a deep breath. "…If it is inevitable, why wait more? You know what I mean?" She shrugged with a soft smile, still unsure but hopeful. "So I'm moving in with you… as a couple" She smiled some more.
Shaun looked away for a brief moment, just thinking.
"So you want to move back in with me just because you think it's inevitable?" He asked, looking back at her.
A feeling of guilt made Lea's body tense. "Well, if you put it like that, it sounds terrible… but to be completely honest, that is kinda how I feel, so… yeah…" She pressed her lips together again, thinking —I just fucked it, didn't I? He doesn't look happy… Daamit—
It took Shaun a moment to process everything then looked back at her and with a smile, he replied. "You're moving back in then"
Lea's worries left her body and she smiled too. "I am!"
"Ooh…" Shaun let out excitedly, then his phone dinged as he received a message from one of his new interns, meaning he had to leave.
He gathered what he was reading and got up from his chair, then walked out of the break room,
—Okay…— Lea thought.
Before Shaun was far, he remembered what his girlfriend once told him, a very important rule in their relationship; so he walked back into the break room, straight to his girlfriend, and leaned to peck her lips quickly, taking Lea by surprise.
"I will see you later" He said leaning back up, then walked out of the room again, leaving lea grinning big to herself as she also recalled the rule in her mind.
About a week later, Lea moved her few belongings back into Shaun's place, or rather, their place. There was no need to hire a moving truck because basically all she had in her old apartment that belonged to her fit into a few boxes that she could transport in the Striped Tomato, apart from her bed. Shaun still helped her pack though, claiming that he still had one of the best packing systems, but, before all that happened, Lea had a talk with him about beds.
When she moved out of the apartment, back when Shaun basically kicked her out as per Carly's request, Lea only took a few things with her, her clothes, a few books, her tech stuff and her bed; the same bed she got and has had since she moved back from Hershey and started living with Shaun, but she decided not to take the bed back with her this time, saying that the mattress was cheap and that it was probably the reason for her poor sleep quality, her neck and back pain, and, although Shaun explained to her that her pain was caused by her bad posture when she sits and when she sleeps, she still argued that they needed something new and better as a symbol of the big step they were taking and also because his single bed that was still on the floor had to go, because, even though it was enough for Shaun, and he didn't need more, she argued that she was no longer going to be sleeping in some air mattress, and, although she liked to be close to him and cuddle with him most nights, his single bed wasn't enough, especially because sometimes they needed their space, but Shaun argued that his mattress was still good, and it had been a gift from Dr. Glassman when he moved to San Jose. In the end, they decided to get a new bed and a new mattress, and as per Shaun's old single mattress, it would be moved to the spare bedroom in case one day they had a guest.
Lea could have gone to the mattress store and pick any she found comfortable, but since she complained about neck and back pain and insisted it was because of the mattress, Shaun did some homework and made a list of the best mattress brands and models, and lucky enough, due to the season, they ended up getting a pretty good mattress with a big discount, the only thing Shaun didn't like about it was the smell of it along with the smell of the new duvet and sheets, but they picked ones they both liked and Lea convinced Shaun that the smell would go away with the use.
"…and the more we use it, they quicker that smell will go away…if you know what I mean" She said with a smirk and a wink, which made Shaun smile excitedly, knowing right away what his girlfriend meant.
That night, they were laying down on their brand-new bed and Lea moved closer to her boyfriend to cuddle him, to which Shaun had no objection and gladly wrapped his arms around her as she leaned to lightly peck his lips a couple times.
"This feels like home… this is what home should feel like" Lea muttered between kisses. "Maybe you were right; it's the same as before" She smiled, looking into his blue eyes.
"No…" Shaun said and looked up at her. "It's the same, but better"
Lea's smile grew wider, and Shaun reached up slightly to kiss his girlfriend, then rolled over on the bed, pushing Lea onto her back so this time he was basically on top of her, and she let out a little squeal.
"See? I told you buying a larger bed would be good" She grinned up at him. "Otherwise we'd be on the floor right now"
Shaun smiled and nodded then proceeded to kiss her again, showing Lea what he wanted, to which she laughed softly as she returned the kiss and mumbled "You waste no time, Mr. Murphy…"