New fic: The Righteous Dead, Part I, DWP
Title: The Righteous Dead
Rating: PG
Pairing: Andy/Miranda
Author: chilly_flame
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything related to the Devil Wears Prada. Alas.
Notes: Thanks, Xander, for the read through. As the community knows, I’ve been thin on inspiration, but this short piece was ready-made for a quick turn around. I’ve also been known to recycle my own plots, and this is another one of those instances. Sad, but true.
This story is a sequel to Sick Day. It’s not necessary for you to read that story, but it might give it a little more context.
Andy stares at the computer screen, watching the words of an email go in and out of focus. Minutes pass in a haze, and she hopes no one notices. When the phone rings, she is startled but picks up right away.
“Miranda Priestly’s office.”
There is a pause. “Who is this?”
Andy swallows gingerly. “This is Andy Sachs, Miranda’s assistant.” Andy blinks once when her brain synapses start firing in a delayed reaction. Tentatively, she says, “Miranda?”
“Mm,” Miranda hums in assent, and Andy closes her eyes. “I’ll be in momentarily. Is my coffee there?”
Andy sits up a little straighter. She’s been waiting for Miranda’s return from her vacation in Nice with both eagerness and dread, but now, the dread takes over in full force. “It’s due to arrive in about,” she checks her watch, “75 seconds.” If Jennifer wants to stay employed, at least, that’s when it will arrive. Otherwise Andy will make her rue the day she took the job.
“Good. I--” There is another uncharacteristic pause. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Clearing her throat as silently as she can, Andy asks, “Is there anything I can start on before--”
“No.”
Okay. That’s different. Andy waits for Miranda to hang up. She doesn’t.
“Well, then--” Andy begins.
“Andrea--oh, fine, it can wait until I get there.” The click of a hang up finally comes, and Andy sits back in her chair and prays Jenn will arrive in about 62 seconds.
She stands up and does a quick once over of Miranda’s office, not touching anything in the process. Jenn is the one who set everything up today, and Andy told her not to say a word to anyone about Andy’s health. She is sure that Miranda will not notice; she was extremely careful with her makeup in the lobby bathroom when she arrived at Elias Clarke at 6 this morning. A box of tissues is stashed under the desk, and Andy’s been sucking down cough drops incessantly since she sat down. And Miranda doesn’t care about her assistants’ health, as long as they can do their jobs, so she is pretty confident nothing will come of it.
She has to stay today. There is no way in hell she’s going home sick. She’d rather die.
By the time she sits down in her chair, Jenn gets back, coffee in tow. “Here, I brought you some chamomile. It should help your throat.”
Andy’s mean thoughts about Jenn all vanish instantly, and she takes the hot cup. “Oh geez, thank you.” She tries to imagine Emily bringing her tea, even in the last months they worked together when things were a little better between them. She still can’t. For a moment she ponders Emily’s new position in the London office, and wonders how she’s doing. Maybe she’ll drop her an email today to find out. She almost looks forward to the irritated reply she’d receive, if any reply came at all.
Carefully she removes the lid of the tea and inhales some of the steam, which soothes her sore nose just a tiny bit. The Tylenol is wearing off already; Andy worries that her fever is back, but she can’t take anything until at least 10. It is going to be a long day, but an even longer night; she plans to sit tight in the office until the absolute last minute. Certainly until the Book is delivered; she thinks about just telling Jenn that she’ll call her when it’s done. That’s a good idea--
Miranda breezes in, and her light jacket is sails in the direction of Jenn’s desk. A bag Andy doesn’t recognize lands next to it; it must be a vacation purchase. It’s lovely, and looks soft and supple as anything she’s ever seen. She’ll have to take a closer look when she has a moment. Maybe it’s Marc Jacobs. She’s seen the early sketches of next year’s spring collection already, and it resembles one she liked a lot. Or it could be--
“Andrea,” Miranda says sharply.
Andy jerks out of her bag reverie and stands up so fast she feels dizzy. “Sorry, hi, Miranda. What can I do?”
Miranda is two feet in front of Andy’s desk, and she narrows her eyes. “Come into my office. Shut the door behind you.”
Andy glances over at Jenn, who looks terrified. Andy tries to force her lips into the shape of a smile, but she’s pretty sure it looks more like a frown. She does as she’s told, and after Miranda sits behind the desk, Andy lowers herself gently onto the edge of an office chair, careful not to touch the arms.
Miranda doesn’t say anything right away, so Andy starts with, “H- How was your trip?”
Miranda purses her lips, not blinking. “A few months ago, we had a conversation that I remember very distinctly, despite my being… more than a little under the weather.”
Andy’s mouth opens, but she can’t seem to reply in any coherent sense. She has a sinking suspicion she knows exactly what Miranda’s about to say. How could she have been so stupid, to think that Miranda wouldn’t notice? Miranda notices everything--if a dog was shitting 40 yards away from a photo shoot on a street corner, she’d have Andy run to make sure the owner picked up after it. She’d notice if--
“Hello,” Miranda says, waving her hand in front of Andy to catch her attention. “I can see that you haven’t taken your own advice, which at the time, sounded rather more like an order.” Miranda leans forward. “Go home.”
Andy freezes. “I’m fine, really--”
“You are sick. Very, unless you’ve surgically altered your voice to sound like Demi Moore circa 1997, which I sincerely hope you have not. Go home this instant. Whatever you’ve got, I don’t want it--”
“Please, Miranda, I’m not sick--”
Miranda’s eyes flash in anger. “I am not asking, Andrea. I am telling you--”
To her utter horror, in less than a five second span, tears burst from Andy’s eyes. Andy covers her face quickly, but it’s too late--Miranda has stopped speaking. Andy can already feel her breath starting to come in sobs. She is mortified at her breakdown, and more mortified that Miranda is witnessing it, and she is absolutely certain she is going to be fired, which is the last thing on earth she wants, because being near Miranda helps keep her motivated to write every night in the hopes that someday, one of her submissions will be accepted by another magazine--
“Andrea!”
Andy sobs in earnest this time, unable to face the prospect of being thrown out of the building like somebody who doesn’t matter, like the shit on the bottom of Miranda’s shoe--
“Andrea, look at me right now.”
Andy looks up, and is struck by the fact that Miranda no longer looks angry. Instead, she appears confused, and is that concern in her eyes? Is that even possible?
“Tell me this instant why you’re crying. For god’s sake, it’s not consumption. Go home and get some rest.”
Andy tries to take a breath, but it sounds more like she’s choking. “I-I-I can’t rest at home. I--please let me just stay---I’ll be out of your way--”
“Why can’t you go home?” Miranda frowns. “Is there a problem? I thought--” Miranda glances over Andy’s shoulder for a moment, out into the hallway. She lowers her voice. “I thought you and that boyfriend of yours were no longer together. Is he… bothering you?”
A fresh round of tears streams down Andy’s face, and Andy is humiliated beyond belief. “It’s not that, not that at all--” she tries to catch her breath again--”he’s gone.” She has no idea that Miranda knew she had a boyfriend, or that they broke up. With a sniffle, she reveals the problem in a whisper. “He took the air conditioner with him.”
Miranda’s eyebrows lift as Andy pulls a tissue from her sleeve to wipe her nose. “Oh?”
“You’ve been away, and it’s been so hot, and I haven’t slept well for a couple of nights, and then I got sick, and I didn’t want to bother my friends, because we’re already on thin ice mostly, so I wasn’t exactly up for hauling a two hundred pound a/c unit up four flights, and it’s like an oven in my place, so I can’t get any rest, and I can’t eat, and I have this stupid fever, but I’ve got--”
“You’re telling me that you can’t go home because you don’t have air conditioning?”
Andy gives her a tiny nod. “It’s only April. I didn’t think I’d need one till later, maybe next month. But it’s been at least a hundred since Friday--almost 107 on Saturday-- and today’s supposed to be just as bad…” She tries hard to cork her babbling, which is dangerously similar to the ramblings of someone suffering a psychotic break. Without warning, she sneezes into her tissue and plants her face into her lap to avoid showering Miranda with germs.
When she looks up again, Miranda is leaning back in her seat, hands steepled together. “Hmm.” She watches Andy, who tries not to squirm. “That is a problem.”
Andy takes a quick gulp of air, and wishes she could sink into the floor and disappear. She has never felt so ridiculous in her life. If she ever thought Miranda could look twice at her as anything other than an assistant, those hopes are gone now, forever--
“Go, then,” Miranda says. “To my home. You have a key. The air hasn’t been on in my absence, but the housekeeper is preparing for my return, so it should be fine by the time you arrive. There’s a bedroom on the third floor, second door on the left, with clean sheets.” Miranda raised an eyebrow. “I take it you have plenty of home remedies on hand? You certainly had enough to take care of me,” she smirks.
Andy sits very still, and looks at Miranda with suspicious eyes. She isn’t sure she’s heard clearly, so she uses the tried and true method to make sure she’s heard right: repetition. “Second door on the--”
“Left. My, you are bad off if you’re having trouble with comprehension. And I hope you haven’t touched anything in the office--”
“Not a thing. Jenn did everything this morning. I’ve been using that hand sanitizer stuff, and I have those wipes--”
“Fine,” Miranda says, and Andy hears her cue to get up and get out. But this time, she doesn’t feel nearly as bad as she thought she would. Because she is going to go to Miranda’s home, and get into a bed on her third floor, and sleep like the dead. The righteous dead.
“Wow, Miranda. I, I can’t thank you--”
“Yes, yes, you can thank me by getting well as soon as possible. I suppose I’ll see you later.” Miranda looks at Andy blankly. “So go.”
“Right.” Andy gets up, and smiles a very embarrassed smile, wiping the last of her tears away and a good bit of mascara along with it. “Thanks, though. Really. Bye.”
Andy opens the door, protecting it with a clean tissue plucked from her other sleeve, and steps back into the hall. Jenn watches her anxiously. “Are you okay?”
Andy nods, feeling as though her head is surrounded by gauze. “I’m going. She knew right away that I was sick.”
There is some panic in Jenn’s eyes now; she’s only been on the job for two months, but Andy isn’t so worried. She did well to find this girl, who is a lot like Andy except for two things: she’s married, and she started out with better style than Andy ever had. “You’ll be fine. Call me anytime you want. I’ll uh, have my phone.” Andy finds the phone in her purse and waves it before straightening up woozily. She hadn’t told Jenn about her miserable living situation, so she doesn’t have to explain where she’s going. “I’ll totally be available, I promise.” Andy prays that she doesn’t get a call, at least for a few hours. “Good luck!”
“Thanks, Andy. Get better soon. Please,” she adds with a grimace.
“I’ll try. See you.” She blows her nose and glances in at Miranda one last time before departing.
The ride in the elevator is solitary, and Andy braces herself for the five minute walk to the subway, which on her way in seemed interminable. Outside, it’s as hot as she remembers, and she swallows against an instantly dry throat. Curiously, she barely makes it to the corner before someone grabs her arm.
“Hey,” Roy says, barely dodging Andy’s purse as it flies toward him in a futile gesture of self-defense. “I hear you need a ride.”
“Huh?” Andy says, before correcting herself. “I mean, pardon?” She’s a little embarrassed that she tried to hit him, but he did try to grab her without calling out first.
He looks at her with confusion at first, but shrugs. “Come on. Miranda texted me that you’re working on some stuff at her place. And that you need a ride.” At Andy’s blank look, he adds, “In the car.”
Andy is sort of freaked at this act of kindness, but she simply nods her head and follows Roy to the double parked Mercedes. They get a couple of beeps by irate taxi drivers as they get in, but Roy is undoubtedly used to that. He doesn’t say anything else as they ease into traffic, while Andy drifts in a pleasant state of bliss with cool air blowing in her face.
“Andy!” Roy says, startling her.
“What? Is it Miranda?”
Roy grins at her in the rearview mirror. “No. We’re here. Man, you look terrible. I take it she made you nuts even while she was away on vacation?”
Andy is groggy, but manages to reply, “Oh, it’s just Miranda.” That’s generic enough to mean absolutely nothing. She hopes. Stumbling out of the car, she hunts in her bag for the key, barely able to stand up in the heat. She remembers to thank Roy only after he’s pulled away, and waves in appreciation from Miranda’s front stoop. She can text him from inside, once she gets there. Finally, she locates her keys and unlocks the door. Stepping inside, she is grateful that the housekeeper is there. “James?”
She waits only a few moments before a tall, slim man appears on the second floor landing with a feather duster in hand. “Hi, Andrea. Miranda told me you were coming. The room is up here.”
Andy goes straight upstairs, following James. She wishes desperately that the room was on the first floor instead of third, because by the time she gets to the top of the steps she is winded and light-headed.
“Here we are,” James says. Andy glances in the open doorway and almost cries again. The bed is turned down, and it looks like a little slice of heaven. The room is cool, and the bedcovers are heavy and soft and downy.
“There’s a bathroom attached, and I’ve left you hot water. Do you have tea with you?”
Leave it to Miranda to be prepared. Or to make other people be prepared. “Yes, I do. Thank you so much, James. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s nothing, Andrea. I’ll be on the second floor. Just let me know if you need anything.”
“Okay,” she nods, He steps out and closes the door, leaving her alone.
The silence strikes her first; she’s used to a constant stream of some sort of noise at her place, of cars and trucks, and voices, and music, and kids crying or laughing or screaming at the tops of their lungs. This is still New York, but it’s utterly quiet, and without delay, Andy pulls off the filmy top she’s wearing, folds it and sets it on a wingback chair. Her skirt follows, and before she can feel self-conscious about being mostly naked in Miranda’s home, she puts a bag of licorice tea in a cup and adds steaming water. She lets it steep while making a quick trip to the bathroom to wash up. Once she sees her reflection in all its glory, she’s amazed that Roy and Jenn and James didn’t laugh in her face when they saw her. She has lines of mascara down her cheeks, and what’s worse is the chalk white of her complexion. She typically stays out of the sun, but with a fever and a cold, she looks like a ghost. A creepy ghost. Her chest is flushed with fever, and she regrets yet again that she can’t take anymore acetaminophen until later. But she never sleeps well when she’s sick; she’ll probably be up in an hour as it is. After a protracted gargling session, she heads back to the room to set out some Tylenol on the bedside table, along with a full glass of water.
Before falling into the bed, she sips her tea and glances around. The room is warm as guest rooms go; warmer than she would have expected from Miranda. There are some pictures of the twins on a far bookshelf that’s lined with novels. There’s even a flat panel television on a small entertainment center, and something that looks like an iPod-friendly stereo. But the bed is the centerpiece of the room, with four posters and a glorious headboard embroidered with elegant vines and flowers. It looks supremely comfortable, and when she sits down, she finds this to be true.
She stacks the pillows at the headboard to have a comfortable place to lean as she finishes her tea, and checks her phone for messages. None yet, and no emails have come in other than a few that Jenn has already replied to and cc’ed her on. A few minutes later, she can barely keep her eyes open, and after she sets the teacup back on the service tray, she pulls the covers up and snuggles down.
“Unbelievable,” she mumbles, thinking about the way she thought she’d spend the day, compared to what she’s doing right now. “Mm. Thanks, Miranda.”
Barely a minute goes by before she is asleep.
---
Part II.