DWP July Fic-a-Thon Entry: Chapter 16 of A Flawed Fragility
I'm alive! Dust off the cobwebs from this fic, because (I think) I'm back! It's been a crazy several months. Exams, starting and finishing a new job contract and a whole other bunch of craziness meant that I've been MIA for awhile. Hopefully this SUPER DUPER EXTRA-LONG chapter makes up for it though. So review & let me know if I'm forgiven? Or if there is still anybody out there reading?
And so, I present (hopefully for your enjoyment) my entry for the DWP July Fic-a-Thon on Livejournal!
I'm alive! Dust off the cobwebs from this fic, because (I think) I'm back! It's been a crazy several months. Exams, starting and finishing a new job contract and a whole other bunch of craziness meant that I've been MIA for awhile. Hopefully this SUPER DUPER EXTRA-LONG chapter makes up for it though. So review & let me know if I'm forgiven? Or if there is still anybody out there reading?
And so, I present (hopefully for your enjoyment) my entry for the DWP July Fic-a-Thon on Livejournal!
The opening arguments for the trial were set to begin a few days before Miranda's next doctor's appointment that would include the anatomical scan as well as the results of the amniocentesis. The charges were going ahead as filed despite Stephen's attempt to have them dismissed. Failing that, it now seemed as though he was going for blackmail.
By now the world knew that the fashion and publishing icon was pregnant with twins at nearly fifty years old and divorcing her husband amidst rumours of spousal abuse. Stephen was using the media frenzy to his advantage, sending her a few carefully worded emails and texts from an untraceable cell phone that threatened his going public with the more intimate details of their relationship, fictitious or otherwise.
Whereas the emails had been thinly veiled innuendo, the text messages were explicit and vulgar as he sent examples of the 'material' he had prepared for the press. When Miranda failed to respond to his first few attempts at communication, the content became more sinister, calls and texts at all hours alternately threatening Miranda and accusing her of choosing her own pride and wealth over the well-being of her children, of 'their children' he added. "Believe me, Miranda, I don't want those brats in your belly, but if you go ahead with the pregnancy you can be damn sure I'll be suing for custody. Makes for a good case, doesn't it? Concerned father seeks custody of children from work-obsessed ex-wife. I can see it working, can't you? The evidence certainly supports my story," he had bragged in one of his earliest messages right after Miranda had announced the pregnancy. Now he said he wouldn't contest the divorce or fight the pre-nup and would relinquish all rights to the babies providing his silence was bought by Miranda to the tune of seven and a half million dollars in settlement. Add to that, that somehow before the trial started, after the charges were officially filed, Miranda's phone, and the incriminating texts with it, went missing from her office. Both assistants had been fired in Miranda's rage that day, although no proof was ever found that they had anything to do with it. However, those events meant that Miranda was near breaking point, the edge to her temper only fueled by hormones and the stress of the upcoming tests on the babies.
"Seven and a half million," Miranda seethed, pacing back and forth across the kitchen a week before the trial was due to start. "He attacks me in my own home, tells me to get an abortion, and then tries to intimidate me into handing over a quarter of my net worth!"
A red flush travelled up her chest and neck, mottling her features as she continued. "'Don't put your children through a trial, Mir, don't put 'our' children through a trial!'" Her voice had risen in pitch until it bordered on hysterical. "As though he has any say over my children. How dare he try and intimidate me, and, and," her voice grew quieter, "how can I let him?" Miranda's voice cracked and she tried to disguise the noise as a scoff as she turned away from Andrea to pace back across the tile floor.
"Miranda, you're allowed to be scared. Sweetheart, he assaulted you. He hurt you and tried to rape you. But he's using that fear to try and control you."
"The thought that I'm still married to him and that I could still be married to him when I give birth to these babies makes me ill, Andrea. I love these two little lives with all of my heart," she turned to Andrea with an impassioned plea in her voice and gaze. "But I hate that he will always be part of their lives, whether he's present or not."
"You loved him at one time, Miranda. It doesn't do you or them any good to deny that fact. You are allowed to grieve that, to grieve him and what he was before all of this."
"I hate him for becoming this monster," Miranda agreed, exhaustion suddenly alarmingly evident in her features, "and I hate the knowledge that I was part of the cause. For all your youthful optimism and naiveté, you must have realized that I'm the common factor in my failed relationships."
"I'm not saying your taste in men has been excellent," Andy teased gently, wanting to chase away the brokenness in Miranda's expression.
Obviously, humour was not the right tactic to take at the moment and Miranda left the kitchen abruptly, going up to the bedroom and disappearing into the bathroom. Andy sighed, flopping back on the comforter. At least the girls were with their father for the evening instead of at the house.
It felt as though the temperature had dropped by ten degrees when she came out again, her makeup freshened, and by the stony look on her face, their previous conversation was no longer up for discussion.
"I'll be in my study for the rest of the evening and I'm not to be disturbed. I have a lot of work to do before Paris next month."
Andy hated when she was like this. She would shut Andrea out, making her feel as though she were a lowly assistant again instead of a partner or a lover.
"Don't be too late to bed, honey, remember your blood pressure was up again at the doctor's the other day."
Miranda ignored her comment. "Don't wait up for me. If I can get these numbers ready by the beginning of the trial, I can use the inevitable publicity to boost the Elias-Clarke shares before the budget is set for the next fiscal year. The trial and the pregnancy will certainly earn me a vote of sympathy with a good deal of the board - that should give us a $2 million leeway in expenses. Also, Andrea, I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, I certainly don't need a hovering shadow needlessly remind me to breathe or take a nap."
"Miranda!" Andy actually stomped her foot as she yelled, the volume and vehemence of her tone actually resulting in drawing the icy gaze for whose owner the shout had been meant for. "I can't believe you would be so selfish and so stupid! Anyone watching would think you were simply using this as a ploy to boost Runway. At what cost are these clever machinations and manipulations going to come? That you still think Paris is an option at this point is telling enough. What are you willing to sacrifice for this? Your health, your children's health? What about what I've done and given up to take care of you? And you're just going to throw that all away, pretend it never happened. Of course, God forbid it makes the great Miranda fucking Priestly look human for once!"
Both women saw red and not much else as they faced each other.
"Take care of me? I apologize, Andrea, if I have gotten in the way of your illustrious career in writing the obits. Clearly I've been a burden to you, I was under the obviously mistaken assumption that you wanted to be here. But I see now, you are not a mother. You do not know and cannot know what it means to be a mother, because you aren't one and never will be. You are in my children's life because I allow you to be. You forget, Andrea, that somehow, in spite of my coldness, indifference and vanity, I have managed to raise two children alone for the better part of a decade. You are not their mother, so don't you dare presume to condescend to me and tell me you know better than I what is best for them. My only regret is that I have apparently wasted your valuable time."
The pain, so primal and animalistic, that shone in the younger woman's eyes in the moment of silence that hung in the air after Miranda's evisceration made Miranda feel like vomiting as she registered what she had said only moments before out of pride and anger and her stomach cramped painfully as she took a step towards her lover. As awful and hurt as Andrea had made her feel she had returned the blow much harder, as was her wont, and looking at the damage she had wrought she could only think that it had been a fatal one.
"If loving you meant losing my friends, and my family, risking my job and my own goddamn peace of mind to protect you and Caroline and Cassidy, then it was worth it. You talk about sacrifice, Miranda? What you have to sacrifice to be the best? Look at what I've sacrificed to be here, and willingly, eagerly, like a goddamn fucking fool! If all that means nothing to you Miranda, then I have nothing more to say; and I have nothing more to give, you have it all."
Andy chuckled, barely concealing a dry sob as she did so, and the matte, dead, gaze she turned upon Miranda would have brought the other woman to her knees had she been able to move, to breathe as she looked at what she had just sacrificed. But the cut was too deep, she had well and truly done it this time, and destroyed who knew how many lives in that triad of sentences.
"But I loved you, I did. And now that I know you never did, what has that love gotten me? Older? Poorer? More alone than I ever was? Well congratulations Miranda, it may not have been your intent, but you've gotten your revenge. You've left me with nothing. I hope you're happy with everything you have, but that doesn't include me anymore."
Andy paused and willed her voice not to shake as she felt her skin burn and crawl where she grasped the door, and she turned her head slightly, speaking to the floor.
"Tell your daughters I said goodbye."
As she pulled the door open, she could feel every nerve and muscle in her body screaming as she fought against the all but overwhelming instinct to throw herself at Miranda's feet, prostrate, and beg for a chance to do better. But she knew she couldn't, she couldn't love her any more if she tried, and the knowledge that she really wasn't enough for Miranda, that she once again fell short of the other woman's needs tore at her until she could have sworn she was suffocating. It was only when she found she was denied the bliss of death or unconsciousness that her feet once more started to move. Once she was past the doorway to their, to Miranda's bedroom, she corrected herself, she did what Miranda obviously expected her to do and she ran.
"Andrea, Andrea please!" Miranda whispered hoarsely as she watched Andrea walk away…again. How, how had it all gone so wrong so fast? Knowing she had failed the young woman for the second time, Miranda tried as hard as she could to do the right thing and let the woman she loved escape from the hell of her world before she was well and truly trapped. But she couldn't. She was too selfish to let Andrea go. Knowing she had wasted precious seconds already, Miranda lunged for the bedroom door, throwing it open and running down the first two flights of stairs before she could see the front door.
Closed, it was closed. She was too late. Painful, silent screams struggled from her lips before she found her breath again.
"Andrea…Andrea!" Still holding onto the bannister the older woman sunk to her knees as a keening rose in her throat and was ripped from her in a howl of pain and fury and she doubled over under the weight of her grief.
"Andy?" was the last, small, whisper from the miserable creature slumped over the steps brokenly for the rest of the night that could be considered intelligible. Miranda hadn't ever cried like this that she could remember, not after the death of her parents or the ending of her marriage; not when Stephen had nearly raped her in the hallway of her own home with the girls a floor away, not when she found out she was carrying the babies of her would-be rapist and soon to be ex-husband. This grief was entirely her own to bear, and she couldn't.
Hours passed and Miranda was still crumpled on the stairs, her fists bruised and swollen from where she had pounded them on the stairs, screaming Andrea's name uselessly. Her chest and stomach ached from the heaving sobs and Miranda pressed her hand against the pain in her chest that throbbed as though her heart would burst from her in search of its other half. As she registered the churning in her stomach, fresh tears sprung to her eyes as she remembered once more, with painful clarity what she had said to Andrea.
"I told her they weren't her children," Miranda spoke the words out loud although there was no one around, forcing herself to listen to the harsh truth. "I told her they weren't hers, that she couldn't love them because they hadn't come from her own body. How could I have hurt her like that? How could I have used her darkest fear against her like that? Oh God. Oh God, oh God. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
Her disgust with herself welled up in her until Miranda could taste the bitterness in the back of her throat as the acid surged up from her stomach. She barely made it to the main floor bathroom in time for her to empty her already excruciatingly empty stomach with painful heaves, not knowing her lover was doing the same less than a block away.
Miranda heard the door open, and whirled around, still on her hands and knees, her arms too shaky to lift herself up from the sweating tile floor.
"Dios mio, my God! Ms. Priestly are you alright?" Miranda's heart sank as the female figure shadowed in the doorway moved into the light and she saw it wasn't her Andy and her face crumpled once again.
"Ms. Priestly let me help you upstairs," Carmen offered, setting down the bags of produce from the Farmer's Market and moving slowly towards the obviously ill woman.
"No," Miranda wiped her eyes and mouth carelessly and braced herself on the doorframe as she struggled to her feet. "No, you are dismissed for today, Carmen, and tomorrow as well," she croaked, wincing as she realized any authority she tried to insert into her voice was belied by her tear-swollen face and failing voice. "You may go after you have disconnected every phone in the house. Take them with you when you go, I don't care what you do to them. I don't want them here."
"But dinner, the girls…"
"I trust you do not think me so stupid as to forget my own children."
"No, Ms. Miranda."
"Then it is not I who is the unintelligent party in this conversation. I said go!"
The older housekeeper immediately turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall.
Turning to the mirror, above the bathroom sink, Miranda wanted to recoil as she saw the pathetic creature who stared back at her, old and cruel and alone; and the worst part of it was that she had no one to blame but herself.
Her shoulders shuddered as she let her head fall forward until it rested on the glass of the mirror and she whispered, "but I am, I did. I did forget about the girls when I sent her home. She was right, Andrea was right. I'm not fit to be their mother.
It took every last ounce of strength for Miranda to text her ex-husband to pick up the girls after their piano lesson and climb the stairs until she reached the empty bedroom.
Taking off her clothes and letting them slip to the ground in an unkempt pile, Miranda went to the closet and wrapped herself in her grey bathrobe. As her hands pulled the worn garment from its hanger, another item fell to the floor at her feet.
With shaking hands, Miranda picked up the garish purple fabric of Andrea's Northwestern hoodie and pressed it to her face, inhaling the scent. "Andrea…"
Blocks over, Andrea threw a wad of cash at the cab driver before stumbling up the stairs to the eighth floor walk-up of Douglas Chapman.
Realizing she hadn't even called to see if he was home, Andy slammed her hand against the industrial painted metal several times until she could hear footfalls behind the door and it swung open to reveal a still suit-clad from work Doug, whose expression changed from annoyed to concerned in a heartbeat as he stared into the anguished eyes of his best friend.
"Doug…I," was all Andy managed to get out before she stumbled forward into his arms and began to sob anew as she found herself pressed to the warmth of her friend's chest as he led her over to the couch. More than an hour passed before Andy was able to raise her pounding head and accept the water and aspirin Doug had gotten up to get for her.
"Everything was fine," she said hollowly, staring blankly across the room. "Everything was fine and then I said something stupid and she closed off and I lost it. I snapped, I did, but my God she hit back harder, Doug. I had forgotten she could be like that…"
Her breathing hitched slightly as she turned to face her oldest friend. "And I left, I left her again Doug. But what choice did I have? I wasn't enough for her, for her children. She was right, I don't know what it is to be a mother and I never will. I left. Oh my God, oh my God, Dougie what have I done?"
Doug recognized the familiar signs of an oncoming panic attack in his friend and grabbed her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms bracingly to bring her attention in.
"Listen. Listen to me, Andy. If for one second Miranda can actually think that YOU do not have enough love to give or that you are not enough for her then there is nothing more you can do. That's it. I know you, Andy. I've known you for almost as long as I can remember and you are not without your flaws, but don't ever let anyone tell you that your love isn't enough. You have the biggest, kindest heart of anyone I know."
Andy was still hyperventilating, her sobs hitched with desperate breaths and hiccups that tore at her chest, bringing more tears to the surface.
"But I, I know what she's like, Dougie. I shouldn't have let her push me away, it was stupid. And what does it say to me that I want to go back? What kind of person wants that? How pathetic or masochistic do you have to be to want to be with someone like that?"
"You can't go back, Andy baby." Doug pulled her into his arms now that she had stopped fighting his embrace. "Not now, not like this. You might be sorry for what happened and how you handled things, but you can't be the only one to apologize or give in first. Something's gotta give if that relationship is ever going to work."
"But the babies, she needs me Doug!"
"And maybe she needs to realize that. For all I've read and from everything you've told me Miranda is just about as headstrong as they come. Maybe this is an eye opener for her as well."
"Doug, I don't want to play games with her. Too many people have tried to play her and hurt her as it is. "
"I'm not saying it's forever, doll. But I think you need to remember how to be by yourself and be happy with yourself before you go and try to be everything to somebody else again. You deserve to be more than a nurse-maid or an assistant turned lover."
Andy's eyes filled as Doug's words echoed the promises Miranda had made not so long ago about partnership and respect.
"Even if she doesn't think I am, or the law doesn't accept me as a parent to those kids; they are, they own me Dougie and I can't just forget them…Those are my children, I thought she knew that, I thought she wanted that. Oh God, I've just been fooling myself thinking I was the one person who knew what she wanted."
"You can't possibly know what she wants if she doesn't know herself, Andrea."
Doug's full use of her name startled her, bringing her back to the present and the realities of her current situation.
"Alright, the apartment is still vacant, so I'm going to go home, get really really drunk, cry and scream some more and, yep, that's pretty much as far as I'm planning ahead. Thank you, Doug, really, for everything. I'm sorry I burst in on your evening, thank God Trevor isn't here," she tried to joke, her watery smile looking more like a grimace than anything.
Doug gave his own careful grimace right back, "Andy, Trevor and I broke up two months ago. He's been moved out for nearly seven weeks."
Andy's mouth opened in fresh horror at how isolated she'd become in her relationship with Miranda. So much so in fact that she hadn't known her best friend had broken up with his boyfriend of two years. "Oh God, Dougie, I'm sorry…"
"Andy honey, it's all right, it's done now, its over. I wasn't okay, but I am now and as such I'm really not sure you should be alone right now."
Andy snorted, "Yeah, neither am I, but I have to remember how to be, right?"
"Take care, honey. You know to call me if you need anything. Whiskey, Star Wars marathon, fresh tub of Rocky Road, I'm your man."
"You always were, Dougie. G'night."
"Mom? Andy? Cara?"
"Hellooo, is anybody home?" The front door slammed shut as two little girls threw off their backpacks and shoes, looking for any signs of life in the darkened house."
"Caro, where is everybody?"
"I dunno, Cass
"Where's Andy?"
The woman in front of them was broken and a stranger to them. As her daughters, they had seen her in just about every situation; sick, exhausted, angry, but none of those things could come close to the terror and self-recrimination they could see in the blue eyes that were their inheritance as well.
Suddenly, the older woman lurched from the bed, swaying slightly having not moved or eaten in hours and tore through the girls' backpacks in a frenzy before finding what she was searching for. Clutching the two cellphones tightly in her fist, Miranda turned away from them once more. "Go."
"Mom,"
"PLEASE! Please, please just go." Miranda all but sobbed as she sank back down on top of the comforter, curled up in a ball with her back to the door and the girls. "Sorry, I'm so sorry" were the broken whispers the girls knew they weren't meant to hear as they turned tail and fled from the room and away from the pain of watching their hero self-destruct in a way that they hadn't thought possible.
Once she heard the soft click that meant she was alone again, the cool glass of the phone's screen against the fevered palm of her hand drew Miranda's attention back to the objects in her hand. Miranda flipped open the first phone and had her breath stolen away once more, confronted by a picture of the four of them all making faces into the camera from their trip to Central Park.
Down the hallway, both girls jumped as they heard a dull crunch, quickly followed by a second from their mothers room, which was normally all but soundproof.
"What the hell happened, Cass?" Caroline was ashen as she turned to her sister, seeking some sort of comfort or reassurance. "I've never seen her like that before."
Cassidy, shook her head, a lump rapidly growing in her own throat, although she didn't quite know why.
"I don't know, Car, but it's not good." Wordlessly, the two held hands as they walked to their bedroom, knowing for sure they'd be bunking together that night.