The Prelude - GGAU #6
Ugh, sorry this took so long to finish. I just started school again and it's been pretty hectic for the few weeks.
Title: The Prelude
Pairing: Helene McCoy/David McCoy, Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4000
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or it's characters. Don't own Gossip Girl either. Never will either.
Summary: Gossip Girl AU. Fifty years in the life of Helene McCoy. All in all, she figures they could have been worse.
Warnings: None.
Notes: I've still got more planned for this verse (and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Jim and Bones then) but no telling when I'll have time to write it. I will try my best, however. Previous parts at my journal. There be a tag for it.
In 1978, David McCoy is the most desired boy in Manhattan. Handsome, rich, and with a pedigree that can practically be traced to the Stone Age. He’s what every girl wants in a future husband.
So naturally, Helene isn’t interested.
It’s not that he’s rude or self-absorbed. She’s known him since she was six years old, and he’s friendly enough. But Helene’s not looking for a husband even richer than she is. She wants to add to the wealth herself. And after watching her mother slowly leech the life out of her father over the years, marrying for money is out of the question anyway.
Helene is smart. And she’s got plans. So she’s not going to waste her time jockeying for David McCoy’s attention like the rest of the girls in her year.
That doesn’t mean she can’t watch them. Just because she’s ambitious doesn’t mean she’s mature.
“Is he looking this way?” “Move, you’re blocking my view!” “Your view? Who cares about your view? Elizabeth’s blocking his view with her giant-” “Really, Nancy? Because that view consists of nothing but a flat chest and-”
On and on it goes, until Helene finally gets tired of their stage whispers. “He’s not going to look over here,” she drones over to them. “We have a test in biology tomorrow. That’s why he’s in the library. Studying.” Seven identical glares are aimed at her. Then one girl speaks up.
Out of all the girls in her high school class, there is a special place in her heart for Sophie Whitman. It’s on fire and smells like eggs. “Just because David doesn’t look twice at you doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for the rest of us, Helene.”
“Oh, I don’t care how you waste your spare time, so long as it doesn’t conflict with my studying,” Helene brushes her off. “But right now you’re distracting me. So how about you go and giggle somewhere until McCoy is willing to be distracted?”
They continue to glare at her, but they soon retreat. As soon as they’re gone, there’s a thump across from her as David slides into the seat. “Thanks for scaring them off,” he says gratefully. “I was afraid they were never going to leave.”
“Same here,” Helene says flatly, riffling through her notes. “That’s why I did it.”
“So why are you in here?” he changes the subject. “Senior year’s almost over. Everyone else has pretty much checked out already.”
“Yes, well, Yale keeps an eye on your grades even after they accept you, so…”
“Yale?” David looks impressed. “Congratulations. I didn’t know. I’m heading off to Princeton myself.”
“So I heard.” His mother had been bragging for weeks afterward. She’s pretty sure people in Jersey know that David is continuing the McCoy Princeton legacy.
“What are you going to be studying?”
“Business.”
“Ah. I’m pre-law.”
Her eyes flick back up. “You don’t sound particularly thrilled about the prospect.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s what my dad wants me to do.”
“And what do you want to do?” she asks, cocking her head.
“Um,” David blushes. “I, uh, I thought it would be cool to do medicine.”
“So do it,” Helene says bluntly. “Your father’s not the one who has to live with it, you are. Why study law if you’re just going to hate it?”
David grins at her. It would have made a lesser girl weak at the knees. As it is, Helene just blinks at him, unfazed. “So why are you studying business instead of art history like a good heiress?”
At this Helene grins back. “Because one day I am going to own this town,” she declares.
“So am I going to have to ask for your permission to live here?”
“Nah. You’re alright, you can stay,” she decides. She looks pointedly at the door to the library. “They’re going to have to relocate, though.”
“My mom thinks I should ask Sophie out,” he says out of nowhere. Helene makes a face. “That’s what I said.”
“Well, if you’re into ‘pretty and stupid’ she pretty much fits the bill.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking more along the lines of ‘smart and ambitious.’ What do you say Helene?” He waggles his eyebrows. “We should go out sometime.”
“Mmm, I’ll pass,” she decides. “But I’d still steer clear of Sophie if I were you. She’s got an eye on your bank account.”
He shrugs, unfazed. “Ah, well it was worth a shot.”
“Yeah, could be worse. I could have said yes.”
They study together all afternoon. Then she forgets all about it.
**
She goes back the summer before she starts business school because her father begs her and Amanda’s wedding is in July.
As she watches the groom dance somewhat stiffly with his mother, she’s focusing so hard on not laughing that she doesn’t hear David approach.
“Helene, you look amazing. Would you care to dance?” She accepts graciously and takes his hand. “So I heard you graduated top of your class,” he says as he begins to lead her around the floor. “I wanted to offer my congratulations.”
“Thank you,” she says. “How was pre-law?”
“No clue,” he beams. “I decided to go the pre-med route instead.”
“Good for you,” she nods her approval. “What did your dad think?”
David’s eyes dim a bit. “He’s not really talking to me right now.”
“Could be worse,” Helene says. “He could be mean and drunk like my mother.”
His face brightens immediately as he laughs. “So where are you going to business school?”
“Harvard,” she tells him.
She can tell immediately something is up. “Oh, really?” he begins casually. “Because, uh, that’s where I happen to be going to med school.” And really, she knows it’s coming. “Some might say that’s serendipity. We should go out sometime, Helene.”
This time she laughs right in his face. “Why don’t you look at the selection Harvard has to offer,” she advises. “Then, if you’re really desperate, you can ask me again.”
“Oh, asking you out is never desperation,” he assures her.
As soon as the song ends, they go their separate ways.
**
Over the next year and a half, Helene cheerfully rejects David a dozen more times, and he takes it good-naturedly each time. They don’t purposely seek each other out, and their respective schedules prohibit much contact, but Helene feels at ease in his company each time she sees him.
She goes back home for winter break during her second year because Amanda’s first son is due any day and her father has just served her mother with divorce papers. On Christmas Eve, a maid interrupts her phone call to Louisa with a quiet “Mister McCoy to see you, Miss Helene.”
She nods her assent to the girl and turns her focus back to the phone. She couldn’t be happier to say, “I’m sorry, Mother, but I have a visitor. Enjoy your affair with your gardener,” before hanging up on her. She looks up to see David laughing down at her.
“Have I ever told you before how much I love your sense of humor?” he asks. He pulls out a gold wrapped present from behind his back and kisses her cheek. “Merry Christmas, Helene.”
She raises an eyebrow at him as she accepts it. “I wasn’t aware we were exchanging gifts.”
“I saw it while buying a present for my mother,” he says by way of explanation.
“Well, please,” she invites, waving a hand at the chair across from her. “Sit.”
He looks slightly nervous as she carefully unwraps the gift. As soon as it lays before her, she understands why. The simple diamond pendant is stunning in the low light of the room.
“David,” she says in a hushed tone, “I-”
“It’s not some way of bribing you into going out with me,” he assures her, “I know it’s a lot, but I don’t want you thinking it’s too much. There’s a reason for this, I swear.”
She takes a breath and arches an eyebrow at him. “And what might that be?”
“It’s a thank you gift.” He leans forward. “Helene, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been in med school right now. I’d have been in some second-rate law school because I wasn’t good at it and I hated it. Instead, I’m at Harvard. And I never would have done it if it weren’t for you.”
She is genuinely confused. “What, because I told you that one time in our senior year?”
“Yes,” he says earnestly. “Helene, before you talked to me, I was actually considering dating Sophie Whitman just because my mother told me so. I did everything my parents expected me to do because I am spineless and scared.” He laughs. “And then you came along. And you laughed at Sophie and all those other girls and you told me you were going to Yale and you were going to own New York. You made me realize I could do anything. I owe everything to you.” He shakes his head. “I was in Tiffany’s, about to buy some hideous necklace for my mother, and I saw this. And it’s just - you. You don’t need some overwrought monstrosity to shine like the rest of them do. And you’re going to last a hell of a lot longer, too.” He looks at her seriously. “I’m not in love with you. I don’t want you to think I’m some idiot pining over a girl who won’t give me the time of day. But I admire you more than anyone I’ve ever met. And I’ve met Ronald Reagan.”
She stares at him, dumbstruck, for several long moments. Then she bursts out laughing.
“Well, help me put it on, then,” she commands playfully, handing him the box.
That night is the first time he doesn’t ask her out. Instead, he gives her a hug and wishes her a merry Christmas.
They end up going to the same New Year’s party. This isn’t so much a surprise, seeing as it is hosted by a classmate from their year, but it isn’t unplanned on Helene’s part either. This is particularly evident by the necklace she decides to wear.
David’s eyes light up when he sees it around her neck and he makes his way over to her, practically having to elbow his admirers out of his way to do so. Helene catches several dirty glares in her direction and smiles blithely in return. “Ravishing,” David declares as he reaches her. “I suppose I should monopolize your attention now before every other male in here decides to do so as well.”
As usual, they talk of everything and nothing as they sit tucked away in a corner. They are both approached several times over the course of the evening, but when they don’t make a move to leave the other’s side, they quickly get bored and leave.
At ten seconds to midnight, Helene leans in toward him. “Hey, McCoy?”
“Yeah?” he asks, somewhat distracted by the countdown.
“We should go out sometime.”
His head snaps around, his face etched with shock. “Really?”
At the cries of “Happy New Year!” she nods. Warmth floods through her when his face breaks into an enormous smile. And when he kisses her right after, she certainly doesn’t protest.
**
She meets him at the elevator as she is coming in. He emerges, looking exhausted, but he still kisses her hello.
“I thought you are off tonight,” she says. “I wanted to have dinner together.”
“They just paged me. They want me to come in again.” He rubs a hand over his face. “This is the third time in five days. I can’t wait until I’m not an intern anymore.”
“Could be worse,” she points out. “You could be a crappy lawyer married to Sophie Whitman.”
“She wishes,” he smiles at her and kisses her again. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but I’ll try to be home as soon as I can. I love you.”
“Love you too,” she replies. She watches him dash off to call a cab before finally entering the elevator. When she steps into their apartment, she notices a yellow Post-It stuck to the wall directly opposite the door. On it, David’s chicken scratch asks a simple question.
If I asked you to marry me, what would you say?
She smiles, grabs a pen from her office, then carefully writes three letters on a new Post-It and sticks it on top of the old one.
Yes.
**
“I hate being pregnant,” she pouts as she stares down at her protruding stomach.
David contemplates her over the edge of his book. “Yeah, you don’t really glow,” he agrees. “Mostly you just bitch and look at your watch a lot.”
She punches him in the arm. “Hey. Be nice to me. I’m carrying your child and I’m taking time off work to do it.”
“Yeah, my child,” he grumbles. “Who you are dead set on naming Leonard Horatio.”
“It’s the only two members of either of our families we actually like,” she justifies.
“Yes. But they also happen to be our grandfathers,” he points out. “There’s a reason the name sounds like it belongs to an eighty-year-old. It does.”
“It’s classic.”
“Helene, David is classic. Leonard is just old.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. He clucks his tongue at her. “If only your underlings could see you now.”
“Shut up or I’m naming him Claudio.”
“Could be worse. It could be Leonard.”
He cries when Leonard is (finally) born in November. That, coupled with the fact that it is her eyes staring up from the head she cradles in her arms completely makes up for the last two months of hell.
Leonard is not even two months old when George Kirk is killed in a car crash on the way to the hospital to witness his own son’s birth. He had been a freshman when they were seniors, barely a blip on their radar, but it still hits Helene hard. The thought of gaining a son only to lose David…
Mostly she feels sorry for the little James Kirk who will never have had his father look at him the same way David looks at Leonard.
He doesn’t say anything when she brings Leonard into their room that night and curls up next to him, just wraps his arm around her tightly.
“David, don’t ever leave me,” she says.
He doesn’t promise anything. He just kisses the top of her head and runs a finger along Leonard’s arm.
**
Winona finally moves back to New York the summer before Leonard turns three, with a new fiancé and an empty look in her eye. Even Helene and David can see that she barely looks at little Jimmy, and only then when she absolutely has to.
On Halloween, they run into the two little boys and their nanny while taking Leonard door-to-door in his little skeleton costume. They allow Jim and Leonard to contemplate each other silently for a few minutes before heading off in their respective directions.
At church the next weekend, Jimmy looks happily at Leonard and chirps “Bones!”
The boys are inseparable after that.
**
Something she quickly learns about Jimmy Kirk is that he has the ability to absolutely break her heart.
About a month before Leonard’s sixth birthday, he approaches her in her office, his little school uniform immaculate as he stands as straight as a fidgety five-year-old can manage. “Mrs. McCoy? Are you busy?”
“Of course not, Jimmy,” she finds herself lying. “Come on in.”
“Um,” he says shyly, ducking his head. “I had a question.”
“Go ahead,” she says.
“I was wondering what I should get Bones for his birthday.”
She smiles down at the little boy’s earnest face. “Oh, darling, I’m sure whatever you get him he’ll love.”
“No, it has to be the best,” he insists. “Because everyone is going to buy him cool toys and he’ll like all of them, but I want mine to be his favorite. Because I like Bones the best and I want him to like me the best too.”
Simple words shouldn’t be able to bring down one of the most powerful women in New York like they do. “Oh, Jimmy, he already does.”
The smile that shoots across his face is like the sun. “Really?”
Over a decade later, she’ll sit with her son and tell him “Don’t you ever hurt that boy, Leonard. Don’t ever let him think you don’t love him.” For now, she just forces a smile and says “Really.”
**
Leonard and Jocelyn Darnell playact as boyfriend and girlfriend all through elementary school. He is the spitting image of David, and Jocelyn looks exactly like her mother, something Sophie never hesitates to point out.
“It’s like the universe is righting itself,” she sighs as they watch the two seven-year-olds play together at the park. Helene has to suppress the urge to laugh at the other woman.
Her cell phone beeps merrily from her purse and she glances at Sophie. “I hope you don’t mind if I take this,” she smiles. “It’s my husband.”
She allows herself two seconds to beam under the fury of Sophie’s glare before she clicks the phone open. “Hi, David.” Her glee increases by a tenfold as he speaks. She signs off with a quick “love you” before calling out to her son. “Leonard, your father just called. Jimmy’s back. Do you want to go home so he can come over?”
Leonard is at her side in an instant. “Can we?” he begs.
Helene turns to Sophie, faking concern. “I do hate to leave early, but Jimmy’s been in Italy for almost a month now. They’ve missed each other terribly.”
Her conscience tells her that it’s incredibly immature to feel victorious over something so petty. The rest of her brain blows a raspberry and goes back to drawing a mustache on her mental picture of Sophie Darnell.
**
When Leonard comes home to blushingly inform them that Jocelyn has agreed to be his girlfriend, Helene can’t keep the distaste off her face once he leaves the room. David laughs at her, of course.
“Could be worse,” he tells her. “This relationship could actually last.”
“Yeah? And what if it does?” she asks sourly.
“It won’t,” he insists.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” he chuckles. “Have you seen the way Jim looks at him?”
She hasn’t. The next time he comes over, though, David wraps his arms around her from behind. “See what I mean?” She does. He kisses her cheek. “It’s only a matter of time.”
She hadn't thought it was possible to love David any more. But to hear him so happy about the prospect of his son dating his very male best friend...
And he’s right. He always is.
**
She doesn’t want to be at this party. She would rather be working.
Still, she grins and bears it, because Amanda has been working her fingers to the bone to pull it off.
Amanda looks like it too. She’s pale and her face looks tight, but she still flits from guest to guest, making sure everyone feels welcome. Helene sips her champagne and watches her friend. As soon as she approaches, Helene leaps up from her seat and offers it to her.
“Thanks, Helene,” she accepts gratefully, “I’m not myself to-” Then her eyes roll up in her head and she collapses into a tiny heap on the floor.
Helene is screaming for David before she can even think.
The results come back quickly. Cancer.
David kneels before her in their sitting room, his expression serious. “We’re going to get her through this.”
She sobs and he holds her hand. “Why did it have to be her?” she asks him.
“I know,” David says, “It’s not fair. It’s never fair.”
Leonard approaches the pair of them a little while later. He looks nervous, but he still sits carefully next to her and grabs her other hand.
**
The morning David leaves for Los Angeles, he dips her, Hollywood-style, and kisses her until Leonard gags pointedly into his omelet. “We’re close to a breakthrough, my love,” he declares dramatically. “I will see you when I return.”
David goes to Los Angeles and doesn’t come back.
She doesn’t know how to function without David. When she was twenty, she would have been disgusted at the thought of being crippled by the loss of a man. But then, at twenty, she would have never imagined being married to David McCoy.
She feels all the standard clichés, that half of her is missing, like she’s drowning in sorrow, everything. Every morning when she wakes up, she expects to see his rumpled form next to her, only to find empty sheets.
She knows she’ll learn to cope with it eventually. Until then, she throws herself into her work and tries to be there as much as she can for Leonard when all she wants to do is ball up and cry.
**
She moves on. She doesn’t remarry, however. The more dates she goes on, the more it becomes clear: David McCoy was the only one ever stubborn enough to worm his way into her heart. But her life goes on without him.
She watches her son grow into a man. She watches him follow the same path she herself took thirty years before, only with Jim at his side. She watches him marry the boy who had loved him his entire life. She watches them adopt two beautiful children.
When she turns sixty she figures it’s time to pass the torch to Leonard. She’s getting tired, and as much as she wants to be the same girl she was at twenty-five, she knows she’s not. But Leonard has made himself a star in the business world the same way she did, and she knows that her legacy is in good hands.
When she’s diagnosed with ALS three years later, she knows better than to be angry. She’s seen too many good people die too early to think that Death is anything but unfair. She’s been more blessed than most.
She fades slowly. She can tell by Leonard’s face that he wishes he had followed in David’s footsteps instead, so that he could fix her. Instead, he can only sit by and pour money into ALS research and watch the paralysis take hold.
She’s almost sixty-eight, and she knows she’s dying. Leonard and Jim bring the kids, who play obliviously as their parents try to keep a brave face for her. She asks Jim about his campaign, about Leonard’s latest buyout. Finally, Jim kisses her cheek, utters a soft “Goodbye, Helene. Love you,” then ushers the kids out of the room, leaving her alone with Leonard.
“Mom,” he begins, his voice cracking.
“Don’t you start, Leonard,” she admonishes. “This is out of both of our hands. I have no regrets about my life, nor how soon or late it’s ending. So don’t start blaming yourself for something you never had any control over.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Darling,” she sighs. “You were never going to have me forever. One thing your father taught me was to stop being so obsessed with the future that I forgot to look at the now. And it could have been worse. I could have never had you. So count your blessings. You’ll see me again someday. I have every faith in that.”
“You’re my hero, Mom,” he gives her a watery smile.
She huffs. “I’d better be.”
**
Her epitaph is only four words.
The universe righted itself.
She may not be able to see Sophie Darnell’s face, but imagining it is enough.
Title: The Prelude
Pairing: Helene McCoy/David McCoy, Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4000
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or it's characters. Don't own Gossip Girl either. Never will either.
Summary: Gossip Girl AU. Fifty years in the life of Helene McCoy. All in all, she figures they could have been worse.
Warnings: None.
Notes: I've still got more planned for this verse (and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Jim and Bones then) but no telling when I'll have time to write it. I will try my best, however. Previous parts at my journal. There be a tag for it.
In 1978, David McCoy is the most desired boy in Manhattan. Handsome, rich, and with a pedigree that can practically be traced to the Stone Age. He’s what every girl wants in a future husband.
So naturally, Helene isn’t interested.
It’s not that he’s rude or self-absorbed. She’s known him since she was six years old, and he’s friendly enough. But Helene’s not looking for a husband even richer than she is. She wants to add to the wealth herself. And after watching her mother slowly leech the life out of her father over the years, marrying for money is out of the question anyway.
Helene is smart. And she’s got plans. So she’s not going to waste her time jockeying for David McCoy’s attention like the rest of the girls in her year.
That doesn’t mean she can’t watch them. Just because she’s ambitious doesn’t mean she’s mature.
“Is he looking this way?” “Move, you’re blocking my view!” “Your view? Who cares about your view? Elizabeth’s blocking his view with her giant-” “Really, Nancy? Because that view consists of nothing but a flat chest and-”
On and on it goes, until Helene finally gets tired of their stage whispers. “He’s not going to look over here,” she drones over to them. “We have a test in biology tomorrow. That’s why he’s in the library. Studying.” Seven identical glares are aimed at her. Then one girl speaks up.
Out of all the girls in her high school class, there is a special place in her heart for Sophie Whitman. It’s on fire and smells like eggs. “Just because David doesn’t look twice at you doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for the rest of us, Helene.”
“Oh, I don’t care how you waste your spare time, so long as it doesn’t conflict with my studying,” Helene brushes her off. “But right now you’re distracting me. So how about you go and giggle somewhere until McCoy is willing to be distracted?”
They continue to glare at her, but they soon retreat. As soon as they’re gone, there’s a thump across from her as David slides into the seat. “Thanks for scaring them off,” he says gratefully. “I was afraid they were never going to leave.”
“Same here,” Helene says flatly, riffling through her notes. “That’s why I did it.”
“So why are you in here?” he changes the subject. “Senior year’s almost over. Everyone else has pretty much checked out already.”
“Yes, well, Yale keeps an eye on your grades even after they accept you, so…”
“Yale?” David looks impressed. “Congratulations. I didn’t know. I’m heading off to Princeton myself.”
“So I heard.” His mother had been bragging for weeks afterward. She’s pretty sure people in Jersey know that David is continuing the McCoy Princeton legacy.
“What are you going to be studying?”
“Business.”
“Ah. I’m pre-law.”
Her eyes flick back up. “You don’t sound particularly thrilled about the prospect.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s what my dad wants me to do.”
“And what do you want to do?” she asks, cocking her head.
“Um,” David blushes. “I, uh, I thought it would be cool to do medicine.”
“So do it,” Helene says bluntly. “Your father’s not the one who has to live with it, you are. Why study law if you’re just going to hate it?”
David grins at her. It would have made a lesser girl weak at the knees. As it is, Helene just blinks at him, unfazed. “So why are you studying business instead of art history like a good heiress?”
At this Helene grins back. “Because one day I am going to own this town,” she declares.
“So am I going to have to ask for your permission to live here?”
“Nah. You’re alright, you can stay,” she decides. She looks pointedly at the door to the library. “They’re going to have to relocate, though.”
“My mom thinks I should ask Sophie out,” he says out of nowhere. Helene makes a face. “That’s what I said.”
“Well, if you’re into ‘pretty and stupid’ she pretty much fits the bill.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking more along the lines of ‘smart and ambitious.’ What do you say Helene?” He waggles his eyebrows. “We should go out sometime.”
“Mmm, I’ll pass,” she decides. “But I’d still steer clear of Sophie if I were you. She’s got an eye on your bank account.”
He shrugs, unfazed. “Ah, well it was worth a shot.”
“Yeah, could be worse. I could have said yes.”
They study together all afternoon. Then she forgets all about it.
**
She goes back the summer before she starts business school because her father begs her and Amanda’s wedding is in July.
As she watches the groom dance somewhat stiffly with his mother, she’s focusing so hard on not laughing that she doesn’t hear David approach.
“Helene, you look amazing. Would you care to dance?” She accepts graciously and takes his hand. “So I heard you graduated top of your class,” he says as he begins to lead her around the floor. “I wanted to offer my congratulations.”
“Thank you,” she says. “How was pre-law?”
“No clue,” he beams. “I decided to go the pre-med route instead.”
“Good for you,” she nods her approval. “What did your dad think?”
David’s eyes dim a bit. “He’s not really talking to me right now.”
“Could be worse,” Helene says. “He could be mean and drunk like my mother.”
His face brightens immediately as he laughs. “So where are you going to business school?”
“Harvard,” she tells him.
She can tell immediately something is up. “Oh, really?” he begins casually. “Because, uh, that’s where I happen to be going to med school.” And really, she knows it’s coming. “Some might say that’s serendipity. We should go out sometime, Helene.”
This time she laughs right in his face. “Why don’t you look at the selection Harvard has to offer,” she advises. “Then, if you’re really desperate, you can ask me again.”
“Oh, asking you out is never desperation,” he assures her.
As soon as the song ends, they go their separate ways.
**
Over the next year and a half, Helene cheerfully rejects David a dozen more times, and he takes it good-naturedly each time. They don’t purposely seek each other out, and their respective schedules prohibit much contact, but Helene feels at ease in his company each time she sees him.
She goes back home for winter break during her second year because Amanda’s first son is due any day and her father has just served her mother with divorce papers. On Christmas Eve, a maid interrupts her phone call to Louisa with a quiet “Mister McCoy to see you, Miss Helene.”
She nods her assent to the girl and turns her focus back to the phone. She couldn’t be happier to say, “I’m sorry, Mother, but I have a visitor. Enjoy your affair with your gardener,” before hanging up on her. She looks up to see David laughing down at her.
“Have I ever told you before how much I love your sense of humor?” he asks. He pulls out a gold wrapped present from behind his back and kisses her cheek. “Merry Christmas, Helene.”
She raises an eyebrow at him as she accepts it. “I wasn’t aware we were exchanging gifts.”
“I saw it while buying a present for my mother,” he says by way of explanation.
“Well, please,” she invites, waving a hand at the chair across from her. “Sit.”
He looks slightly nervous as she carefully unwraps the gift. As soon as it lays before her, she understands why. The simple diamond pendant is stunning in the low light of the room.
“David,” she says in a hushed tone, “I-”
“It’s not some way of bribing you into going out with me,” he assures her, “I know it’s a lot, but I don’t want you thinking it’s too much. There’s a reason for this, I swear.”
She takes a breath and arches an eyebrow at him. “And what might that be?”
“It’s a thank you gift.” He leans forward. “Helene, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been in med school right now. I’d have been in some second-rate law school because I wasn’t good at it and I hated it. Instead, I’m at Harvard. And I never would have done it if it weren’t for you.”
She is genuinely confused. “What, because I told you that one time in our senior year?”
“Yes,” he says earnestly. “Helene, before you talked to me, I was actually considering dating Sophie Whitman just because my mother told me so. I did everything my parents expected me to do because I am spineless and scared.” He laughs. “And then you came along. And you laughed at Sophie and all those other girls and you told me you were going to Yale and you were going to own New York. You made me realize I could do anything. I owe everything to you.” He shakes his head. “I was in Tiffany’s, about to buy some hideous necklace for my mother, and I saw this. And it’s just - you. You don’t need some overwrought monstrosity to shine like the rest of them do. And you’re going to last a hell of a lot longer, too.” He looks at her seriously. “I’m not in love with you. I don’t want you to think I’m some idiot pining over a girl who won’t give me the time of day. But I admire you more than anyone I’ve ever met. And I’ve met Ronald Reagan.”
She stares at him, dumbstruck, for several long moments. Then she bursts out laughing.
“Well, help me put it on, then,” she commands playfully, handing him the box.
That night is the first time he doesn’t ask her out. Instead, he gives her a hug and wishes her a merry Christmas.
They end up going to the same New Year’s party. This isn’t so much a surprise, seeing as it is hosted by a classmate from their year, but it isn’t unplanned on Helene’s part either. This is particularly evident by the necklace she decides to wear.
David’s eyes light up when he sees it around her neck and he makes his way over to her, practically having to elbow his admirers out of his way to do so. Helene catches several dirty glares in her direction and smiles blithely in return. “Ravishing,” David declares as he reaches her. “I suppose I should monopolize your attention now before every other male in here decides to do so as well.”
As usual, they talk of everything and nothing as they sit tucked away in a corner. They are both approached several times over the course of the evening, but when they don’t make a move to leave the other’s side, they quickly get bored and leave.
At ten seconds to midnight, Helene leans in toward him. “Hey, McCoy?”
“Yeah?” he asks, somewhat distracted by the countdown.
“We should go out sometime.”
His head snaps around, his face etched with shock. “Really?”
At the cries of “Happy New Year!” she nods. Warmth floods through her when his face breaks into an enormous smile. And when he kisses her right after, she certainly doesn’t protest.
**
She meets him at the elevator as she is coming in. He emerges, looking exhausted, but he still kisses her hello.
“I thought you are off tonight,” she says. “I wanted to have dinner together.”
“They just paged me. They want me to come in again.” He rubs a hand over his face. “This is the third time in five days. I can’t wait until I’m not an intern anymore.”
“Could be worse,” she points out. “You could be a crappy lawyer married to Sophie Whitman.”
“She wishes,” he smiles at her and kisses her again. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but I’ll try to be home as soon as I can. I love you.”
“Love you too,” she replies. She watches him dash off to call a cab before finally entering the elevator. When she steps into their apartment, she notices a yellow Post-It stuck to the wall directly opposite the door. On it, David’s chicken scratch asks a simple question.
If I asked you to marry me, what would you say?
She smiles, grabs a pen from her office, then carefully writes three letters on a new Post-It and sticks it on top of the old one.
Yes.
**
“I hate being pregnant,” she pouts as she stares down at her protruding stomach.
David contemplates her over the edge of his book. “Yeah, you don’t really glow,” he agrees. “Mostly you just bitch and look at your watch a lot.”
She punches him in the arm. “Hey. Be nice to me. I’m carrying your child and I’m taking time off work to do it.”
“Yeah, my child,” he grumbles. “Who you are dead set on naming Leonard Horatio.”
“It’s the only two members of either of our families we actually like,” she justifies.
“Yes. But they also happen to be our grandfathers,” he points out. “There’s a reason the name sounds like it belongs to an eighty-year-old. It does.”
“It’s classic.”
“Helene, David is classic. Leonard is just old.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. He clucks his tongue at her. “If only your underlings could see you now.”
“Shut up or I’m naming him Claudio.”
“Could be worse. It could be Leonard.”
He cries when Leonard is (finally) born in November. That, coupled with the fact that it is her eyes staring up from the head she cradles in her arms completely makes up for the last two months of hell.
Leonard is not even two months old when George Kirk is killed in a car crash on the way to the hospital to witness his own son’s birth. He had been a freshman when they were seniors, barely a blip on their radar, but it still hits Helene hard. The thought of gaining a son only to lose David…
Mostly she feels sorry for the little James Kirk who will never have had his father look at him the same way David looks at Leonard.
He doesn’t say anything when she brings Leonard into their room that night and curls up next to him, just wraps his arm around her tightly.
“David, don’t ever leave me,” she says.
He doesn’t promise anything. He just kisses the top of her head and runs a finger along Leonard’s arm.
**
Winona finally moves back to New York the summer before Leonard turns three, with a new fiancé and an empty look in her eye. Even Helene and David can see that she barely looks at little Jimmy, and only then when she absolutely has to.
On Halloween, they run into the two little boys and their nanny while taking Leonard door-to-door in his little skeleton costume. They allow Jim and Leonard to contemplate each other silently for a few minutes before heading off in their respective directions.
At church the next weekend, Jimmy looks happily at Leonard and chirps “Bones!”
The boys are inseparable after that.
**
Something she quickly learns about Jimmy Kirk is that he has the ability to absolutely break her heart.
About a month before Leonard’s sixth birthday, he approaches her in her office, his little school uniform immaculate as he stands as straight as a fidgety five-year-old can manage. “Mrs. McCoy? Are you busy?”
“Of course not, Jimmy,” she finds herself lying. “Come on in.”
“Um,” he says shyly, ducking his head. “I had a question.”
“Go ahead,” she says.
“I was wondering what I should get Bones for his birthday.”
She smiles down at the little boy’s earnest face. “Oh, darling, I’m sure whatever you get him he’ll love.”
“No, it has to be the best,” he insists. “Because everyone is going to buy him cool toys and he’ll like all of them, but I want mine to be his favorite. Because I like Bones the best and I want him to like me the best too.”
Simple words shouldn’t be able to bring down one of the most powerful women in New York like they do. “Oh, Jimmy, he already does.”
The smile that shoots across his face is like the sun. “Really?”
Over a decade later, she’ll sit with her son and tell him “Don’t you ever hurt that boy, Leonard. Don’t ever let him think you don’t love him.” For now, she just forces a smile and says “Really.”
**
Leonard and Jocelyn Darnell playact as boyfriend and girlfriend all through elementary school. He is the spitting image of David, and Jocelyn looks exactly like her mother, something Sophie never hesitates to point out.
“It’s like the universe is righting itself,” she sighs as they watch the two seven-year-olds play together at the park. Helene has to suppress the urge to laugh at the other woman.
Her cell phone beeps merrily from her purse and she glances at Sophie. “I hope you don’t mind if I take this,” she smiles. “It’s my husband.”
She allows herself two seconds to beam under the fury of Sophie’s glare before she clicks the phone open. “Hi, David.” Her glee increases by a tenfold as he speaks. She signs off with a quick “love you” before calling out to her son. “Leonard, your father just called. Jimmy’s back. Do you want to go home so he can come over?”
Leonard is at her side in an instant. “Can we?” he begs.
Helene turns to Sophie, faking concern. “I do hate to leave early, but Jimmy’s been in Italy for almost a month now. They’ve missed each other terribly.”
Her conscience tells her that it’s incredibly immature to feel victorious over something so petty. The rest of her brain blows a raspberry and goes back to drawing a mustache on her mental picture of Sophie Darnell.
**
When Leonard comes home to blushingly inform them that Jocelyn has agreed to be his girlfriend, Helene can’t keep the distaste off her face once he leaves the room. David laughs at her, of course.
“Could be worse,” he tells her. “This relationship could actually last.”
“Yeah? And what if it does?” she asks sourly.
“It won’t,” he insists.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” he chuckles. “Have you seen the way Jim looks at him?”
She hasn’t. The next time he comes over, though, David wraps his arms around her from behind. “See what I mean?” She does. He kisses her cheek. “It’s only a matter of time.”
She hadn't thought it was possible to love David any more. But to hear him so happy about the prospect of his son dating his very male best friend...
And he’s right. He always is.
**
She doesn’t want to be at this party. She would rather be working.
Still, she grins and bears it, because Amanda has been working her fingers to the bone to pull it off.
Amanda looks like it too. She’s pale and her face looks tight, but she still flits from guest to guest, making sure everyone feels welcome. Helene sips her champagne and watches her friend. As soon as she approaches, Helene leaps up from her seat and offers it to her.
“Thanks, Helene,” she accepts gratefully, “I’m not myself to-” Then her eyes roll up in her head and she collapses into a tiny heap on the floor.
Helene is screaming for David before she can even think.
The results come back quickly. Cancer.
David kneels before her in their sitting room, his expression serious. “We’re going to get her through this.”
She sobs and he holds her hand. “Why did it have to be her?” she asks him.
“I know,” David says, “It’s not fair. It’s never fair.”
Leonard approaches the pair of them a little while later. He looks nervous, but he still sits carefully next to her and grabs her other hand.
**
The morning David leaves for Los Angeles, he dips her, Hollywood-style, and kisses her until Leonard gags pointedly into his omelet. “We’re close to a breakthrough, my love,” he declares dramatically. “I will see you when I return.”
David goes to Los Angeles and doesn’t come back.
She doesn’t know how to function without David. When she was twenty, she would have been disgusted at the thought of being crippled by the loss of a man. But then, at twenty, she would have never imagined being married to David McCoy.
She feels all the standard clichés, that half of her is missing, like she’s drowning in sorrow, everything. Every morning when she wakes up, she expects to see his rumpled form next to her, only to find empty sheets.
She knows she’ll learn to cope with it eventually. Until then, she throws herself into her work and tries to be there as much as she can for Leonard when all she wants to do is ball up and cry.
**
She moves on. She doesn’t remarry, however. The more dates she goes on, the more it becomes clear: David McCoy was the only one ever stubborn enough to worm his way into her heart. But her life goes on without him.
She watches her son grow into a man. She watches him follow the same path she herself took thirty years before, only with Jim at his side. She watches him marry the boy who had loved him his entire life. She watches them adopt two beautiful children.
When she turns sixty she figures it’s time to pass the torch to Leonard. She’s getting tired, and as much as she wants to be the same girl she was at twenty-five, she knows she’s not. But Leonard has made himself a star in the business world the same way she did, and she knows that her legacy is in good hands.
When she’s diagnosed with ALS three years later, she knows better than to be angry. She’s seen too many good people die too early to think that Death is anything but unfair. She’s been more blessed than most.
She fades slowly. She can tell by Leonard’s face that he wishes he had followed in David’s footsteps instead, so that he could fix her. Instead, he can only sit by and pour money into ALS research and watch the paralysis take hold.
She’s almost sixty-eight, and she knows she’s dying. Leonard and Jim bring the kids, who play obliviously as their parents try to keep a brave face for her. She asks Jim about his campaign, about Leonard’s latest buyout. Finally, Jim kisses her cheek, utters a soft “Goodbye, Helene. Love you,” then ushers the kids out of the room, leaving her alone with Leonard.
“Mom,” he begins, his voice cracking.
“Don’t you start, Leonard,” she admonishes. “This is out of both of our hands. I have no regrets about my life, nor how soon or late it’s ending. So don’t start blaming yourself for something you never had any control over.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Darling,” she sighs. “You were never going to have me forever. One thing your father taught me was to stop being so obsessed with the future that I forgot to look at the now. And it could have been worse. I could have never had you. So count your blessings. You’ll see me again someday. I have every faith in that.”
“You’re my hero, Mom,” he gives her a watery smile.
She huffs. “I’d better be.”
**
Her epitaph is only four words.
The universe righted itself.
She may not be able to see Sophie Darnell’s face, but imagining it is enough.